


Demigod Hero

by Nikyal45



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Character Death, F/M, Gen, I wrote this forever ago, I'm sorry for the poor writing skills of Junior High me, Mount Olympus (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Multiple Deaths, Over Powered Percy, POV Alternating, POV Multiple, POV Third Person, SHEILD, Tartarus, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:53:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 28,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21709273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nikyal45/pseuds/Nikyal45
Summary: This is a story that I wrote forever ago, inspired by many other fanfics of this nature. Basically in the final battle against Gaea, everyone but Percy dies and he does not want to face anyone afterwards. He somehow ends up in Tartarus and is tortured by all of his enemies there. Shield has beep keeping and eye on him ever since the whole "St. Louis Arch Incident" and wants to bring him in before he does anymore damage.I believe this is also posted on Wattpad under my friends account because I didn't know how to do posting.
Relationships: Past Jason Grace/Piper McLean - Relationship, past Percy Jackson/Annabeth Chase - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

*Flashback/third person*

The Seven, Nico, and Apollo were basically the only ones in action, the other Gods were fighting Typhon, who had risen again, thanks to Gaea. Hazel was using her power over metal to squish monsters inside their own armor and was cutting down as many monsters as she could with her javelin riding on Arion. Piper was Charmspeaking monsters into killing themselves and was also Charmspeaking some so she could stab them with her dagger Katoptris. Frank was turning into animal after animal, at one point he turned into a dragon and burned monsters to a crisp by breathing fire, then transformed into a snake and biting monsters with celestial bronze fangs filled with venom. Leo was running through the field completely covered in flames burning bunches of monsters to a crisp. Jason was a storm, literally, he made a tornado out of lightning and sent it through the army, he took down half of the army doing so. Apollo was shooting arrow after arrow taking down monster after monster occasionally blinding monsters or playing magical music that made the monsters turn on their own. Nico was summoning wave after wave of the undead, it seemed like an endless army, the undead killed as many monsters as they were being killed. Annabeth and Percy were fighting back to back, destroying monsters with every slash and stab of their weapons. They fought as if they were one person, knowing where the other would strike. They were practically unstoppable. 

A scream then echoed through the battlefield, everyone stopped in their tracks, even the monsters, because the cry had been full of anguish and pain. The cry came from Jason, and he was standing over Piper who had a spear through her stomach and was barely alive. 

“I….. I love….. you Jaso-” she then cut of with a shuddering intake of breath as the life in her eyes died.

Jason, with a murderous glare destroyed every monster near him, the smarter ones that were near the back of the group decided to back away from him and headed for another person. Jason then went back to Piper’s body and whispered, “I love you too.” He took his sword and stabbed himself in the stomach, he then lay down next to Piper and looked at her as he died.

Leo stared at Jason, then he burned hotter, his flames brighter and taller than before. Every monster within a foot of him instantly died, turning into glittery dust. Out of nowhere a arrow made of metal flew forward and hit Leo in the chest, he crumpled, the arrow came from the one and only Gaea.

“Insignificant demigods, you are no match for me and my power, I am fully awake, nothing can stop my carnage. I will destroy all life on this planet, it will be the home for my children, not you pesky Gods and demigods. All mortals shall bow down to the mighty Gaea!” Gaea shouted.

“Yeah. Nice victory speech, but you haven’t won yet, that will not happen to our home, even if you’re all powerful now that you’re awake. You have weaknesses and faults, just like any other creature we’ve ever faced. We will bring you down or die trying.” Percy said bravely against her.

Gaea scoffed, “like you can ever defeat me.”

Percy shrugged, “We can try,” he answered.

At that point Hazel was taken up by the claws of Gaea and she was ripped from limb to limb in front of everyone. Frank, outraged, charged at her, but was met by a sword of a Cyclops in the heart.

Percy then made his own personal hurricane, by doing so he took out almost all of the rest of the army. Now there was only a few monsters left in the fight. Nico had stopped summoning the undead, he was becoming tired after using so much of his power, by doing this he was killed by a dracaena near him.

Percy and Annabeth were still fighting back to back, but they had seen all of their friends deaths, and they were fighting harder than before. They, and Apollo, defeated the rest of the monsters doing so. Now Percy, Annabeth, and Apollo were up against Gaea. Apollo was shooting arrows at her while Percy and Annabeth made a plan on how to defeat Gaea. Once they were done, they turned to Gaea, Percy made his personal hurricane, while Annabeth put on her Yankee’s hat and turned invisible.

The Gods were still fighting Typhon, but Typhon was getting slower and less powerful as the fight went on. Typhon was close to being defeated when he trapped Athena, Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Artemis, and Aphrodite underneath a mountain he had pulled off of the ground. Now only five Gods were able to fight Typhon, the fight went slower since there were almost half the Gods fighting him now. After about a few more minutes Typhon was defeated and returned to his prison again, the five Gods, sensing that they would not be needed in the fight against Gaea, decided to help the other Gods.

Percy, Annabeth, and Apollo were still fighting Gaea, but they had made some progress against her, Gaea was riddled with cuts and was bleeding ichor, the golden blood of immortals.Percy was fighting Gaea alone, he was dodging every strike she made, Gaea then brought out a spear and threw it at him, Percy dodged it as well. When he did a squeak came, and Annabeth appeared, her hat in her hand and a spear through her stomach. 

“Apollo, heal her!” Percy shouted, the God nodded and rushed to her side. Percy fought with a fury no one had ever seen before, he was so angry you could practically feel his aura increasing with every blow to Gaea. When Percy looked back to Apollo to check on Annabeth, Apollo’s face was grave. 

“She’s gone Percy, I’m sorry, but Annabeth is dead.” Apollo said. Percy’s aura increased ten fold, he turned to Gaea with such a murderous glare that even she flinched. Percy picked up Zeus’s lightning bolt and hurled it at Gaea, he then used his power over water to summon a spear made of water, he then hurled that at Gaea too. He made another weapon, this time sword, then another sword, an arrow, he made a clawed hand and struck Gaea, then he made a spear and hit her again. Gaea, after such a beating was weakened.

"What I threw at you were the things that killed my friends, now, they will kill you.” Percy shouted, he then made all of the weapons at once and threw them at Gaea, at last she was defeated.

Percy picked up Zeus’s lightning bolt again and hurled it to the ground beneath him, a bright light flashed and when it went away, Percy was gone. The Gods assumed he was dead, Percy had a strong aura even before the fight with Gaea, but they couldn’t sense him anywhere. The Gods then decided to remember the brave demigods by placing a gravesite in Manhattan that held the dead heroes, and by placing a memorial worthy of Athena on Olympus.

* * * * * *

After the war Percy couldn’t bring himself to go back to Camp, there were too many memories. As a result monsters came at him every day, at one point he was captured and taken back to Tartarus. In Tartarus Percy was tortured by all of his enemies, Kronos, the Titans, and Gaea as well. At one point he just broke and killed them all, then escaped. When he arrived back at the surface, he found that it had been three years since he had last been in New York, three years of torture and many scars. Percy refrained from using his powers, knowing full well that it would alert his father of his presence. The scars became permanent as a result, it made taking showers awful, he had to be quick and get out of the place he was fast. After being in New York for a while, Percy found the memorial for the seven and Nico, when he found it he cried his eyes out for his friends, remembering the day they all died. After that he started visiting the grave site every day and mourned for them.


	2. Chapter 2

*Stark Tower/third person*

“I have summoned you all here because there is a threat that could possibly harm the entire world.” Director Fury said looking at all of the Avengers. Tony Stark/Iron Man, Natasha Romanov/Black Widow, Clint Barton/Hawkeye, Thor, Steve Rogers/Captain America, Dr. Bruce Banner/The Hulk.

They all looked at Fury shocked, after Loki was defeated there really was no threat to the world besides petty terrorists and dumb criminals, but the way Fury was talking, this threat was pretty major. “What do you mean, ‘harm the entire world’? I thought we were done with threats like that.” Natasha said.

Fury sighed, “I thought so as well,” he pushed a button on a remote and a teenage boy appeared on the screen. He had black hair, green eyes, and was slightly tan. “Perseus Jackson, seventeen years old, mother is Sally Jackson, father is unknown. He is a known terrorist, he was seen heading west with two other accomplices about five years ago, he blew up the St. Louis Arch, then caused more destruction heading west. He has been kicked out of every school he’s been to, put classes in shark tanks, injured students, and blew up gymnasiums. He went off the map each summer. Five years after the monument incident, he and seven other accomplices, one of which was one of the two other accomplices with him, were sighted in Europe, they damaged many public artifacts. The other accomplices are confirmed dead, but he has been off map for three years. He has recently been spotted visiting a cemetery every night after six. He is approximately twenty years old by now. I want you to contain him at any cost, do not kill him, but if you have to, hurt him, heck, I don’t care how you do it, just bring him in alive.” Fury ordered, the team looked shocked at what this boy had done.

“Who would recruit someone so young to do their dirty work? Who are the others with him?” Steve asked Fury.

“We don’t know, here’s the file for the mission, you get him today.” Fury replied, handing a file to each of the team members, then he left.

Stark just threw the file off to the side while the others actually read the thing.


	3. Chapter 3

*Natasha*

The team was at the cemetery at 5:48 to get Perseus, at around six he showed up at the cemetery, he was off in space thinking. Immediately I noticed his eyes, they were a beautiful sea green but they were also dull and dead, as if he wasn’t even alive. He walked up to eight beautiful, expensive looking graves. I immediately motioned the team to get into position, Clint went into a tree, Tony up started his armor and flew into the sky, Bruce crouched behind a bush, Steve straightened his back and stood in an attacking position, Thor swung his hammer around casually, and I got my guns out.

“I’m sorry,” he said, going on one knee and bowing down on one knee. He then kept murmuring, his voice too low for me to hear. After he was done he stood up and said something each of the graves, touching them as he said his words. The first grave had a humongous blow up of a dove, the second had two hammers crossing with stone flames surrounding them. The third grave was a dragon’s tail and hind legs slowly going to a head of a snake. The fourth one had stone carved gems with a horse and rider on top of the pile, the rider holding a spatha. The fifth one had four lightning bolts with a sword in the middle and had the handle in the air. The sixth had what looked like a skull on top with a hand reaching out as if something was rising from the grave. The seventh one had a humongous owl with it’s wings out furled, the owl had on a cap and was holding a book and what looked like a map in it’s talons. There was an eighth one as well, it had a Pegasus with a rider holding a trident, the Pegasus had it’s wings out furled and look about ready to leap into the sky and fly off. 

Perseus touched it and said, “Soon, soon I‘ll be there.”

He then turned around and said, “I know you’re there, can’t a guy mourn in peace? What do you want?”

We stared at each other in shock. How did he know we were here?


	4. Chapter 4

*Percy Jackson*

I left my Mom and Paul’s apartment, they were off on vacation somewhere, and they sure deserved it. They thought I was dead I so wanted to just run into the apartment and hug my mom as I watched her mourn over me. But I knew that she couldn’t know I was still alive, my dad visited her often and helped her get over me, I’m pretty sure she would tell him I was alive, and I couldn’t let the gods know that. They would be all over me whenever a new threat came up and beg me to save the world once again. Well, I was done with the pain that came with saving the world, it had brought to much mental, emotional, and physical pain to me before, and I wasn’t going to go through that again.

Anyway I went to the graveyard where the gravesites were for my friends, as I got closer to the cemetery I felt six people inside it, they were probably here to mourn over whatever loved one died. Normally I would have turned around and head back to my mom‘s abandoned apartment, but today I was just too mentally, emotionally, and physically in pain to care. Today was the day the war happened, the war where I watched everyone I cared about die right in front of my face, while I was helpless to do a thing about it. In my time in Tartarus, I had gained the ability to sense presences. From them I could sense they weren’t a great threat but could still kick some butt. Three of them, felt….not exactly human. One of the three felt more powerful than the others, and felt kind of like an ancient power.

I kept on walking, I didn’t care about the six, I assumed they wouldn’t notice me, so I walked into the cemetery and headed toward the eight graves there for my friends that died. As I was actually in the cemetery, I could sense they were clumped together and on my entrance they spread apart and I sensed them pulling out weapons. I didn’t care, I pretty much sensed a weapon on every New Yorker, but I never stopped wondering why they had them in the first place. But what really got me on defensive mode was that one of them flew into the sky and another climbed a tree nearby.

I walked up to the graves and knelt, silent tears flowing down my face. “I’m sorry,” I said, bowing my head. I then stood up and touched the graves as I said something about them. “Piper, you were a brave warrior and a great friend, rest in peace Beauty Queen. Leo, keep on building those crazy contraptions of yours, flame on bro, flame on. Frank, you were a great help to me at Camp Jupiter, and I thank you for that, rest in peace my friend. Hazel, I also thank you for your assistance at Camp Jupiter, you helped get me into the Fifth Cohort, and I thank you for that as well. Keep on summoning that gold for Arion, he needs it. Jason, you were a great friend in the short time I knew you, you did a great job leading the team while me and Annabeth were gone, be happy Sparky. Nico, keep on being the creep you are, I feel honored to have known you since you first came to camp, you were a great warrior, a great friend, and an even better cousin, rest in peace Death Breath. A-Anna - my Wise Girl- I hope you live happily in Elysium, you wait for me, okay? I’ll be there as soon as I can convince the Fates to let me.” I looked at the eighth one, the grave that was supposed to be for me when the Gods thought I died. It never ceased to amaze me how beautiful the graves were, each figure on the headstone matched the person’s identity perfectly, especially Annabeth’s. I silently cursed myself for not being able to say her name. I touched the grave meant for me and said, “Soon, soon I‘ll be there.” 

I know what you’re thinking, soon I’ll be there, what does that mean? Well, my friends (or possibly enemies reading this) it means that soon I’ll actually be in that grave, actually dead.

I then turned around and said, “I know you’re there, can’t a guy mourn in peace? What do you want?” I could sense them look at one another in what could be shock, amazement, or anger, I couldn’t really tell, all of those emotions felt the same, yeah, I can sense emotions as well. It can be pretty handy in times, when I want to get away from my own emotions I can focus on other people’s, it distracts me from all the inner pain I’m in.

Then three people stepped out, one was a redhead with a very tight black bodysuit. Another a guy with a red, white, and blue spandex suit with a shield that was red, white, and blue rimmed with a white star in the middle. The last person was one of the people that didn’t feel entirely human, but now that he was closer I could feel a certain… energy feel around him. It was as if he had a great power, but had gained it after a great lesson in responsibility of it. The person was wearing a silver armor that fitted as a second skin and was carrying a hammer. 

“How did you know we were here, Perseus Jackson?” The redhead asked. I flinched at my real name visibly.

“I have my ways,” I replied mysteriously. “My turn! How did you find me? Who are you? And it’s Percy, by the way.” 

“Black Widow,“ The redhead replied.

“Captain America,” Said the flag looking guy.

“Thor, Norse god of thunder and lightning,” said the armor guy. I instantly flipped out at him being a God.

“A God! Oh great, can’t the gods find another hero, say… I don’t know, one that hasn’t been through a lot of stuff! I’m tired of you gods getting me to do things for you! Percy do this, Percy do that, Percy kill that enemy, Percy fight in this war and see all your friends killed! Well I’ve had enough! First it was the Greeks, then the Greeks and the Romans, now the Norse want me, find some other person to be you pawn in your predicament, because I’m done being some toy used for the success of others!” And with that rant being done I sprinted off towards the back gate to get away from my pursuers not giving them the chance to answer my question on how they found me. I knew from their emotions that they were on a mission of some sort, I could sense the emotion of duty and determination in them, and I was afraid that mission was getting or killing me. But then I remembered bitterly that they couldn’t kill me anyways, because of the Fates.

~~~~Flashback~~~~

I was heading home back to my mother's apartment, she had just left for vacation, so I was going to use it as a hideout. I was taking the city bus back to our apartment, when suddenly the bus crashed. I felt weightless, then deftly remembered flying through the windshield, into the road, and landed hard. My head hit the ground, and I immediately knew that it was bleeding, I could feel the blood flowing down my head and onto the ground, where I watched the puddle get bigger. My vision then started getting blurry and grey, as if the color was slowly seeping away leaving a black, white, and grey expanse behind. Then a bright, golden light appeared and I saw three old ladies, The Fates, crinkly, old and wrinkled, knitting a pair of sea green socks. The middle one was holding a long string with the golden scissors that I had seen snip Luke’s life cord. I knew that they were showing me this for a reason, but the Fates were all about being mysterious so I didn’t have the faintest idea on why they were showing me them snipping my life cord.

“Perseus Jackson,” I flinched at my real name. The middle one then took the scissors and cut the string, I heard the loud snip and winced, then opened my eyes, the cord hadn’t been fully snipped, so I wasn’t fully dead, but close to it. “You are not destined to die just yet, or any time soon, therefore the gift and curse of immortality has been placed on you.” They said this at the same time, in a weird monotone creaky old lady way, it was creepy enough to send shivers down my spine. Then I felt a new burst of pain and power enter my body. It was as painful as getting dipped in the Styx. I cursed at them vividly in Ancient Greek, and then I passed out due to the amount of blood that I lost. 

I woke up in a hospital bed wearing a normal hospital gown and I had an IV running into my arm while a machine near me measured my heartbeat. After three minutes of it beeping loudly every other second, my eye twitched for the thousandth time, then I angrily turned the thing off. Immediately a doctor came in, gasped, and dropped the clipboard she was carrying.

“Sorry, it was annoying the heck out of me,” I said to her. She just nodded and stared at me, I shifted uncomfortably in my bed. I then sat up, but the world started spinning, I gripped the handrail tightly and waited for the room to stop looking like I was on a Tilt-a-whirl.

Then the doctor was forcing me back down on the bed I fought to stay upright, but then I noticed just how bone tired I was. I stopped fighting and slumped back on the bed. She then lectured me about how I was to weak to be doing a lot of activity just yet. I nodded my head when she looked at me expectantly, but that just made the world spin faster. I then gripped the other rail with my other hand as well and closed my eyes, took deep breaths, then opened them again. I sighed in relief when I saw the room was staying in place.

The doctor looked at me worriedly, I sighed. “The room was spinning.” I explained.

After many arguments with the doctor about the heartbeat monitor, and eyes twitches later, I finally got the doctor to leave the thing off. It was an understatement to say I was just relieved. I was happy, relieved, and mostly overjoyed that the machine was off. I then started being relentless about calling my friend Stacy, she was a mortal and one of the few people who knew I was actually alive, but the doctor wouldn’t let me because ‘it would unbalance my health’ and some other doctors speak. They found out later that I slept lightly, had ADHD, and dyslexia. 

One night I had been sleeping, having a nightmare about the war to be exact, for the fifth night in a row. Someone had brushed up against me, I then shot up and judo flipped them and put my hand against their neck. I then saw the frightened face of the doctor, and instantly scrambled back and hugged my knees. I had almost killed someone.

“I’m sorry, I was having a nightmare about a not-so-long ago experience that I had before the bus crash. You woke me as I was reliving it, because of that event I sleep very lightly, always afraid that someone’s after me as they were then. I’m sorry if I hurt you.” I apologized, the doctor stood and nodded shakily, then wrote down something and scurried out the door.

It was another week before they allowed me to talk to Stacy, it took an hour before I convinced her that I was alright. She didn’t seem convinced and visited later that day. It was the happiest I had been since entering the hospital. I hugged her and told her about the crash. That night I slept the best I had in the three months after the war. The doctors noticed and immediately allowed me to talk to Stacy more often. I got released a month later from the hospital. Then two months after was when I got kidnapped by monsters and taken to Tartarus.

~~~~~~End flashback~~~~~~

All of those memories resurfaced as I thought about what the Fates did, I was immortally seventeen now, which basically was the most terrible thing that had ever happened to me. I mean, why should I still be alive while the others were dead? I should be dead as well, either that or they should be alive while I was the only one that died. I shuddered at the thought of my kidnapping and what happened on my returning to Tartarus. I exited the gate of the cemetery and sprinted off towards my apartment occasionally cutting down random alleys and changing directions, trying to lose my pursuers. I then scaled a fire escape and started jumping across buildings, and then I landed on my apartment building.

I then climbed down the fire escape on my building and opened the window to my room. I started packing, I grabbed my suitcase and bag and stuffed it with what I had, which wasn’t much, I only owned the clothes I was wearing. Nevertheless I stuffed the remains of my ambrosia, and nectar in the suitcase. In the bag I put Annabeth’s dagger (I found it while I was in Tartarus for the second time), Katoptris, Nico’s sword, Jason’s coin, Hazel’s spatha, and Frank’s spear and bow and arrows, and placed Leo’s tool belt on my waist. I then proceeded to put in more personal items, pictures of Annabeth, my Mom, Paul, the Seven, Nico and Bianca, Selena, Beckendorf, Zoe, Artemis, and my Dad. I couldn’t recall how I had taken or got some of the pictures, but I didn’t care. They showed all of my friends and family and that was what was most important. 

I then left by using the fire escape to get to the ground. I looked for the strange people that had been after me but I didn’t see them. I shouldered my bag and headed off. I had no idea where I would go now, but I couldn’t stay at my mom’s apartment, those people had tracked me down somehow, and apparently they hadn’t gotten the memo that I was ‘dead’. I had a feeling they were with the government, but that didn’t make sense. The FBI, CIA, and NYPD didn’t dress up as superheroes, and they certainly knew that Percy Jackson was ‘dead’.

I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I accidentally bumped into someone. I instantly said sorry, and kept on going.

“Sorry, that’s all you have to say!” The guy exploded.

“Umm, I’m sorry I bumped into you, sir?” I questioned, maybe the guy didn’t like how I apologized, I turned and it was a guy dressed in a metal suit, I recognized his aura as the one that I had sensed fly off. I gulped and forced my eyes to not be as wide.

“Do you even know who I am?!” He shouted at me, his face turning a slightly funny shade of red.

“Umm, no?” I said, but it sounded more like a question. “Should I?” I thought I recognized his face from somewhere, then it hit me. “You’re Tony Stark, the selfish billionaire that has a machine for a heart.” I instantly regretted the last part of my sentence, that would not make him a happy camper.

“WHAT!” Tony exploded, his face was now turning a hilarious dark purple, and I saw a vein bulging on his neck. He made it pretty obvious I had ticked him off and damaged his precious ego.

Before he recognized me as the person he and his other teammates were looking for, I sprinted off and headed towards Central Park.

I was halfway across the street before I heard someone shout, “There he is!” If these people were after me, it usually meant they wanted to fight me, and if that was true, then it was probably best I was heading to Central Park. Around this time of day, not many people were around, and there was guaranteed to be damage to the surrounding area, which usually meant someone getting hurt.

I flinched at the thought, the world then started to dim, as if losing color, and slowly going black, as if I were closing my eyelids really slow. I was about to have a flashback, they had been happening more recently than any other time I was here on the surface, and it didn’t make sense why they would. Because, I thought that it was supposed to get better, not worse, of course it makes sense with my bad luck. Unfortunately for me, whenever I had a flashback, it usually brought me back to the fight with Gaea, where I watched my friends die, over, and over, and over again. When I woke up, I felt more helpless, felt more guilty, and most of all, I felt more grief. It was either that or the flashback made me relive my three years of torture in Tartarus. Which made me feel as if I were weak and powerless. Those things did not make for a happy morning.

I couldn’t afford to have a flashback now, especially with these people after me. I then went to pinch myself, as I did, the color slowly came back to the world as I ran towards Central Park. When the color returned to how it was supposed to be I looked at my arm, and cursed. I had pinched myself so hard, that my fingernails had cut through my skin, I was bleeding profusely from the two crescent shaped holes. Quickly, I dug out some ambrosia from my bag and stuffed a piece in my mouth. I watched as the wound scabbed over, then vanished.

I then set down my bags, and looked behind, searching with my newly acquired skills to find out where they were, and it turned out that they weren’t far behind me. I then vapor traveled into a tree and waited there, leaving my bags on the ground in plain sight.

Vapor travel is kind of like shadow travel, but it takes a lot more effort than shadow traveling does. I have to break down my body into water, then force to another location where I have to convert my body back to solid flesh and bone. I had first discovered I had that power when I was trying to escape Tartarus. I had grown desperate and come up with the crazy idea of breaking my body down into water, then reassembling my body back on the surface. When I arrived on the surface successfully, I realized my body was exactly how it was supposed to be. Then I passed out for three straight days. Since then I had been working on that power, and now I could travel to another place almost simultaneously. Though I completely preferred walking over vapor travel due to the fact that it was extremely uncomfortable to move or walk afterwards.

A few minutes later they arrived in the clearing, they immediately noticed my bags on the ground, and went to a guarded position. They looked around cautiously, as if I was going to burst out of the bushes and attack them.

“What do you want from me? Why are you on a mission? Is it to contain me? To bring me in? If so, what have I done to be captured?” With each question I asked I vapor traveled to another spot, so I could confuse them about where I was. With each question they whirled to face where my voice came from. I would say they were officially confused now.

“Yes, Perseus, we are on a mission to detain you, you are considered a threat to the whole of Midgard.” Said Thor the Norse god of thunder, yep, he was pretty much one of the only people who’s name I cared to remember, besides Tony. I mean, he was a god, a Norse god perhaps, but a god nonetheless. The only reason I remembered Tony is because how he reacted to me calling him a selfish billionaire with a machine for a heart, his face was hilarious. 

“So… Midgard is what you Norse’s call Earth, weird, but hey, who isn’t?” I flashed to another spot. “Why am I considered a threat to the whole entire world? All these years, I’ve done nothing but save it.”

“You! Save the world!” Tony scoffed. “You’re a kid!”

I rolled my eyes. “I am a kid, yes, that is very true, but I have been through things that would make any normal kid become insane. I consider myself an adult because of how much happened to me, and how much wiser and older I seem because of it.” I answered truthfully, jeez, if someone was going to track somebody down, they needed to know the facts of their life, it was simple logic.

They grew silent at my answer, some of them had shocked looks on their face, they had not been expecting that answer, apparently. 

“Y- you're lying!” Tony stuttered. As he looked to where my voice had come from, I flashed to another spot before he could see me.

“Really? Your comrades don’t seem to think so. They find truth in my words, and believe me, my words only contain truth.”

I bet you're wondering, Why does Percy Jackson, who’s a Seaweed Brain, sound sophisticated? Well, because after the war, I honored one of Annabeth’s last wishes. One of them was that when we met back up in Elysium, I wouldn’t be as stupid as I was beforehand. So that is why I sound sophisticated, I took literature so I could sound smart. But I pretty much acted as stupid as I did before.

I flashed to another spot before they could look to where I was. “So, what have I done to be considered a threat to the world?”

“You have injured many students. It has also been recorded that you have blown up gymnasiums, monuments and many public artifacts. It is said that you caused wreckage while traveling west eight years ago with two accomplices, then caused wreckage in Greece with seven other accomplices. For these reasons, you are considered a threat.” Thor answered, still attempting to find me.

“Oh, those incidents, they happened all right, but I was under special circumstances. People always don’t seem to notice I was being attacked. But when I blew up a bus and sent my class into a shark tank, those were accidents. I mean, seriously? Who has a loaded war cannon on a school field trip?” This time I traveled into the clearing right in front of them.

They stared at me, I smiled at them and waved nonchalantly, “So,” I inquired. “Are you going to answer my last question?” They just stared while their faces looked like they were having mental seizures. “And by the way, I’m not coming with you, I’m kind of tired of the whole ‘save the world’ biz by now.”

The redhead came to her senses first, “A loaded cannon? On a field trip? When was this?” She asked.

“In the fifth grade.” I answered. I scooped up my bags. “I’m ‘dead’ anyway, and I really don’t want to be resurrected.” I air quoted ‘dead’ with my fingers.  
T  
hey looked at me shocked. “You faked your death?” The guy with the shield asked.

“Yup” I replied, popping the ‘p’. Then an immense pain went through my arm, I looked at it and there was an arrow going right through my shoulder. “Man, I’m such a Seaweed Brain, I forgot the sixth dude, and what do I get? I get shot in the shoulder, that’s what. You know, this is probably tipped with some weird poison or something to make me pass out.” And then, correct to my guess, everything started getting fuzzier, and I blacked out.


	5. Chapter 5

*Clint Barton*

I sat on a tree and watched the target Perseus disappear and reappear from tree to tree, confusing my team mates. I frowned, he might be some ally of Loki, that was the only explanation for how he could do that. That kind of magic was the type I remembered Loki possessing. When he appeared in front of them, I took it as my chance to switch out my arrow for another one that was tipped with a type of poison that would make him pass out. I then took aim. After he said something, the team looked even more confused and shocked then they already were, I took this as the time to shoot him. The arrow flew toward him and went straight through his shoulder putting the poison in his blood as it passed through his arm.

For some reason, he was really calm about the arrow in his arm, he didn’t scream or anything. He just looked over at his shoulder calmly like, Would you look at that, there’s arrow in my shoulder. Then, as expected, he passed out.

I jumped out of the tree then headed toward the rest of my team, putting my bow away as I went along. “So,” I inquired, smirking. “How are we getting him back to base?” 

They stared at me in shock, then Cap smiled at me and said, “Nice shooting Hawkeye.”

I shrugged in response. “Anything interesting come up while you were talking to him?” I asked.

“Before, he spoke as if he knew of the Gods on a personal level. And just now we learned that this boy faked his death. He is intriguing, to say the least.” Thor answered.

I looked at him in surprise, he didn’t know the guy’s name? Usually Thor was one of the only few who read the mission files, including Black Widow and myself. For him not to have read it was very shocking. “You didn’t read the file?” I asked him, to make sure, maybe he forgot his name.

Thor shook his head shamefully, “No,” He admitted, “I was using the file to cover up the fact I was eating a pop tart.” I shook my head and sighed, Thor and his fascination for pop tarts…

Cap picked the kid Perseus up and hauled him up over his shoulder, then he had a surprised look on his face. “What?” I asked.

“He’s really light, and I can feel his bones through his shirt. And don’t you think it’s odd that he’s not wearing nicer clothes? If he was working for someone, wouldn’t he be getting money for it? And if that’s the case he should be getting enough money to buy decent clothes and enough food to eat… It just seems odd. Check his suitcase for extra clothes.” Cap said, nodding toward the suitcase that fell out of his grip when he passed out.

Black Widow nodded and unzipped it. Inside it was… brownies and apple juice? There were about five baggies stuffed with brownies, and there were about six bottles of the apple juice. But there were no clothes in the suitcase, no shirts, shorts, undergarments, or socks, just the baggies and a leather necklace with beads that had different pictures on them.

I picked it up and looked at the necklace. The first one was black with a green trident, the second was white with what looked like a golden… something. The third was black with a silver bow, and the fourth was red with a inscription of a maze. The fifth one was blue with what looked like the Empire State building with names around it. The last one was blue with pictures of a golden dragon, a golden staff topped with an eagle with electricity coming from it, a red, fiery owl, black, ominous doors, and what looked like a mud monster sleeping. Around the edge were eight names, each written in a different color.

The names were ‘Annabeth Chase’ in Gray, ‘Percy Jackson’ in Green, ‘Jason Grace’ in Yellow, ‘Piper McLean’ in Pink, ‘Leo Valdez’ in a Red-Orange-Yellow streaked color, ‘Nico di Angelo’ in Black, ‘Frank Zhang’ in Red, and ’Hazel Levesque’ in Gold. I set the necklace back into the suitcase, then closed it.

“Let’s get him to base, I’ll grab this suitcase, someone else grab the duffel bag.” I ordered. They nodded, Widow reached down and grabbed the duffel bag. When she lifted it she grunted then let it fall to the ground. She frowned the picked it up again and pulled it onto her shoulder. “Something wrong?” I asked.

She nodded, “The bag’s heavy, like, really heavy.” I looked at the bag thoughtfully, it could have explosives, weapons, or other dangerous things people could acquire. Who knows how many people we’ve found with magical items left over from the War of New York, they had tried to use them to overthrow the government. It was chaos trying to put out all the revolts, eventually all the magical items were confiscated. That took six months to accomplish.

“We’ll look into it at the base, in case it’s something dangerous.” Cap said, at least there was one other person besides Bruce and I who thought sensibly. We headed out with Cap in the lead along with Thor, Bruce was inspecting Perseus’s shoulder. I felt kind of bad about the arrow in his shoulder, but I aimed to avoid any vital things like veins and muscle tissue, so it shouldn’t be too much trouble to get it healed and fixed up.

I thought back to what Fury said, how frustrated he seemed with this kid. Then it occurred to me, if he was such a big threat, then why haven’t we captured him yet? Why were we just told of him now? Why not sooner when he was twelve, when he first started destroying public items and causing destruction? It was all so confusing. 

And this boy intrigued me, he didn’t look like a twenty year old, he looked around seventeen or eighteen. Did we get the files wrong, and if so, how was that even possible? Shield was, and is, on top of every possible information available. We had accurate information on everybody in the whole entire world, files and files worth of information, and the information came from many of our reliable systems. And if he was working for somebody, he would’ve had better clothes, and wouldn’t be as skinny as he was… 

We arrived at the base quickly, and used the elevator to go upstairs. Fury was waiting for us. He raised an eyebrow at Perseus on Cap’s shoulder, and eyed the arrow for minute. Then he put his arms behind his back and straightened up. “Good job. Black Widow, I want you to place his belongings in the lab with Bruce. And Captain, place him in the second highest secure prison we have on this ship.” Widow nodded then grabbed the suitcase from me and followed Bruce to his lab. Cap looked surprised, but then complied and left to place him in the prison.

I looked at Fury and asked the many questions that had been on my mind. “Why hadn’t we been told of him sooner, why now when he has an even more dangerous reputation? We could’ve captured him when he was twelve, it would’ve been much easier then. Why didn’t we? And, by the way, he doesn’t look like he’s twenty, he looks seventeen or eighteen, are the files wrong? Isn’t it kind of impossible for them to be wrong?” 

Fury sighed, “I’ll answer that when the rest of the team get back from their assigned duties.” He then went and sat down at the head of the table. 

Suddenly a distorted shout was heard from the direction I saw Steve go in. I ran out, there was more shouting, so it made it easier to follow. I burst into the door to find Steve in a defensive position and the kid in one of the corners. He looked as if he was crying, but he was also in a defensive position, but facing away from Steve.

“Shut up!” He shouted, then he punched thin air. He then side stepped and did a roundhouse kick. Suddenly he fell and his head went up as if someone was pulling it up. He was still crying. “Please,” He pleaded to thin air. “I can’t watch it again, you’ve done enough already, save it for tomorrow, at least. I don’t think I can go through that again… not right now.” After a few seconds he flinched as if something or someone had hit him. He started crying harder. Then he started saying things. “It’s all my fault! I should’ve protected them, I could’ve saved them, but I didn’t. I’m so weak… so pathetic. I’m so sorry! I should’ve died, not you, not any of you!” He was started to curl in on himself, going into a small ball. He then repeated “It’s all my fault” To himself as he cried.

I stared at him, it was like he was not just reliving something horrible mentally, but he also relived it physically as well. It was a type of nightmare I hadn’t seen before, a type I wouldn’t like to have. I turned to Steve, “What happened?”


	6. Chapter 6

*Steve Rodgers*

When I walked down to the containment facility (personally, I like saying that than prison) the kid started muttering to himself. It sounded like he was having a one-sided conversation.

“Where are you taking me?” After a minute. “Oh that’s oh so very helpful.” Pause. “What’s the torture this time?” I stopped walking. Torture? “Morpheus?” He started struggling, so I walked faster toward the facility. “Not again, what are you going to make me relive this time? Their deaths? All the people I’ve seen die, deaths? My abused childhood? A nightmare including the rest of the people I care about dying, like last time?” Abused childhood? Deaths? Dying? What last time? This had happened before? I then started walking even faster. I felt something wet on my back, he was crying.

“Leave me alone!” he shouted, just as I reached the facility and opened the door. He jumped out my grasp and punched me in the face. I staggered back from the force of the punch. When I looked back at him he was staggering back as well. I saw his eyes, they were glazed over, like he wasn’t awake. He turned around slowly in a defensive position like he was watching someone who was attacking him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! I’m not pathetic! I don’t give up! Be quiet! Shut up!” Was he reliving something, or something? What was going on?

I went into a defensive position in case he attacked me again, he kept facing away from me though yelling things. The door opened, I glanced over quickly and saw Clint at the door. I turned back to the kid. 

“Shut up!” He yelled, he then punched the air, he sidestepped, then did a roundhouse kick. Suddenly he fell and his head went up as if someone was pulling it up. He was still crying. “Please,” He pleaded to thin air. “I can’t watch it again, you’ve done enough already, save it for tomorrow, at least. I don’t think I can go through that again… not right now.” After a few seconds he flinched as if something or someone had hit him. He started crying harder. Then he started saying things. “It’s all my fault! I should’ve protected them, I could’ve saved them, but I didn’t. I’m so weak… so pathetic. I’m so sorry! I should’ve died, not you, not any of you!” He was started to curl in on himself, going into a small ball. He then repeated “It’s all my fault” To himself as he cried.

I glanced at Clint again, he looked horrified, and he was staring at the crying mess on the floor. He turned toward me, “What happened?” He asked. 

I shrugged in response, though I knew exactly what it was-a flashback. I used to have them all the time, I sometimes relived things the way Percy did, physically and mentally. I didn’t want Clint to know that, though. I didn‘t want him to treat me any differently than he did now. I definitely didn’t want any pity or concern-so I lied. “Nightmare? How am I supposed to know? I’ve never seen anything like this before! Are we supposed to shake him to wake him up or leave him to wake up on his own?” I asked him, he shrugged in response as well. 

Suddenly the sobbing stopped, Clint turned to Perseus and so did I. He was still curled in a ball, tears were still flowing down his face, but his eyes were clear, they weren’t glazed anymore. “Why isn’t it getting better?” He whispered to himself. “Why is it only getting worse? Each time I fall asleep I relive something else, and it’s so vivid it’s like it’s happening all over again. I can feel everything and I feel as if I’m going through it physically as well. It’s - it’s so frustrating!” He sounded deeply angered with himself, and with every sentence his voice grew into a yell at the end. “I wish there was, like, some sort of dream blocking machine that made just inky blackness appear when I fall asleep…” He muttered, sounding wistful.

I cleared my throat awkwardly, he snapped up to look at us and wiped his tears away like he didn’t care that we just saw him cry his eyes out in a horrible nightmare, and maybe he didn’t, who's to know? “What?” He asked nonchalantly. “Can’t a guy cry without being judged? Sheesh!” He stood and looked at his shoulder. He broke off the pointed tip, then pulled the arrow through with a grimace. 

“Clint, I’ll get the director, you… stay here.” I said, then I sprinted down the hallway down to the conference room. When I got inside, Fury was standing there waiting. He raised an eyebrow at me, but otherwise didn’t react. “Sir, he’s awake.” I informed. 

Fury nodded, “Bring him in.” He ordered.

“Yes sir.” I then went back to containment facility. When I got there Percy was sitting in the corner staring down at the floor. Clint himself was leaning in the door frame with his arms crossed looking bored.

When I arrived he pushed himself off the wall and said, “It’s about time you got here. The whole time we were just sitting in an awkward silence. It became very… weird.” The kid snorted.

“The Director wants to see you, Perseus,” I said.

He flinched, then looked up and glared at me, “It’s Percy.” He said forcefully.

I sighed, but gestured for him to come with me. “Take the back Clint.” I ordered, he nodded, then moved to let Percy through the doors. I started off down the hallway back to the conference room, hoping beyond hopes that Fury would take it easy on the kid, though it would be impossible for him to do so. I sighed in frustration, this had turned out to be even more weird than I had anticipated.


	7. Chapter 7

*Percy Jackson*

While walking down the hallway I tried to repress the embarrassment from being seen crying by two strangers who had been trying to capture me. I thanked my lucky stars (or, properly, my unlucky/occasionally lucky stars) that I had gotten good at lying.) I had made it seem like it wasn’t a big deal that they had seen me crying, but the exact opposite was true. It was everything, my possible enemy now had one of my weaknesses. The fact that I had nightmares could be used against me to get me to talk. So that’s why I acted the way I did, like it was no big deal, even when it was.

I darted my eyes around, storing in every turn and sign I could in my memory, so I could escape if I needed to, even though I was probably being taken to their leader…Wow, that sounded like something off of an alien movie. I almost laughed at how alien basically explained me, even though I was a half-blood, I was basically half alien because the Gods were pretty much a force outside of nature. Aliens. I again almost laughed at what their faces probably would have looked like if I told them that they are practically aliens. Zeus’s face would’ve been hilarious. Just thinking about it made me snicker against my wills to keep quiet.

The flag dude looked back at me and raised an eyebrow at me suspiciously. “Sorry,” I apologized. “I have ADHD, so my mind comes up with random things. Like, for example, my thoughts somehow turned over to aliens and how people would react if I called them that.” I snickered again at the faces that would be made at that comment. “Priceless.”

Both of the flag dude’s eyebrows raised now as he said, “Oookaaay…” It sounded like he was feeling a bit awkward at my behavior, I couldn’t blame him…I mean I had been crying only moments before and now I was laughing like the world’s funniest thing just appeared in my brain…which it did, by the way. *Mentally laughing hysterically at Zeus’s face* 

It then went into an uncomfortable silence, which put my ADHD into hyper drive. I started to turn my head look around, my fingers started tapping on my thighs, then I started humming the last song I had heard, which was from a commercial about the Lego Movie. The flag dude looked back at me with annoyance. 

“Are you seriously humming ‘Everything is Awesome’?” He asked incredulously. 

I nodded, “It’s the last song I heard, so it just came to mind. Besides, the silence was killing me, I’m not good with quiet… or keeping still for that matter. I wonder if it’s a side effect from ADHD?” I mostly asked that question to myself. “It probably is…” I answered myself.

“Any other disorders or things we need to know about?” Cap asked me.

“I’m also dyslexic, and I’m pretty sure I’m not allergic to anything… and I hate seafood, so whatever you do, don’t feed it to me.” I answered, the last part wasn’t really necessary, but I thought they should know. I still couldn’t look at seafood the same way after I found out I pretty much had to protect all sea life, and since Bessie, of course, so I never ate any. Cap raised an eyebrow at that, but shrugged in a way that said he had heard weirder, which I respected him for, he didn’t judge me like I know a lot of other people would’ve.

We finally arrived at a door, Cap opened it, then stepped inside and held the door open for me. I thought it was kind of weird that he did that, but I didn’t comment, because, hey, goodness knows how much weirder stuff I’ve seen. So I just raised an eyebrow at him, and shrugged in a ‘who am I to judge’ way. I shoved my hands in my very messed up jean’s pockets, which were pretty much holding together by a couple of threads on my legs, and I thanked the Gods that there were no rips above my thighs. Goodness knows how embarrassing it would’ve been if they asked me to explain why I didn’t have decent enough clothes on to hide my undergarments. (Undergarments… what a strange and unique way to say underwear…)

While walking in the room I noticed a one-eyed dark skinned man with his hands clasped behind his back. I was instantly compelled to assume the same pose and close one eye to mock him, but I quickly quelled the compulsion and stood a few feet away from the door. “How’d you find me?” I asked.

The man’s frown deepened with annoyance, and I resisted smirking at that. “You were spotted visiting the cemetery, and your record made you a possible threat to us, it was only reasonable that we brought you in to make sure you would try to harm the whole world.” My mouth dropped in surprise.

“You know,” I said, annoyance laced in my words. “If you’re going to track someone down you might, just might, need to make sure you have all the information about your target. I was quite happy with everyone thinking I was dead, and it seems that you don’t know that fact. I do not want to be known as alive so if you excuse me, I’m going to take my bags, get out of your problem, and leave.” 

“What makes you think we have a problem?” The man asked, raising a single eyebrow at me.

“There’s probably not a problem right now, but I guarantee there is going to be one with my bad luck. I’d rather not be the reason another bad guy shows up to take over the world because they get wind I’m alive, I’d rather not have to deal with that kind of thing again. By the way, what’s your name?” I asked.

The man looked shocked for about a second, then his mask of calm, and slight annoyance, slid back. “I am Director Fury, Perseus Jackson.” I flinched, what was it with everyone here knowing my full name?

“It’s Percy,” I said forcefully, pushing away all the memories that came with that name. Most of which had to do with my first stepfather, Smelly Gabe. That thought made the room start to dim, just like in the park. I immediately went to pinch myself on my leg with my hand still in my pocket. “Fury?” I asked him, I really hoped he wasn’t a monster, that would be really awful.

“Is there a problem with my last name?” Fury asked with his eyebrow raised.

“I hope not,” I muttered in response. By then the room had stopped getting darker, so I stopped pinching myself and I hoped that the wound left wouldn’t be like my arm had been.

Fury turned and headed toward a table that I just noticed was in the room because Fury now stood at the head of it. I mean seriously, how did I miss that table? It pretty much took up the entire room! I shrugged.

“Have a seat.” He said, though the tone of his voice made it sound that if I didn’t, I would be forced to anyway. So I sat down at the end that was closest to me, which happened to be completely on the other head of the table from Fury. I chose that seat for a number of reasons. Partly because it was the seat that was closest to the door, so I could get out fast, but it was mostly because it would annoy Fury. Cap and Arrow Dude sat down too. Cap sat two seats away from Fury on my left, and Arrow Dude sat four seats away from me to my right. A door opened across the room and in came in Tony, the redhead, and a guy wearing glasses. Then another door burst opened, and in came Thor holding a Pop tart. 

“Do you know why you are here?” Fury asked me when Thor and the others sat down.

“Well, apparently I’m considered a threat to the whole world.” I answered truthfully.

Fury nodded, then asked, “Do you know any of the team members by name?”

I nodded, “A few, well, two, actually, but that was because they gave me something to remember them by. Thor came with the shocking news that he was the Norse God of thunder, and the only reason I know Tony’s name is because of how he reacted to me calling him a selfish billionaire with a machine for a heart. His face turn purple of all colors. His ego’s the size of my uncle’s desire for dramatics.” I said snickering at that last part, man would Zeus be mad if he knew I was talking about him, but hey, he thought I was dead along with the other Gods, so I could pretty much say whatever I wanted to about them at this point. A few others snickered as well at my comment about Tony, while the man himself deflated in his chair, turning red with embarrassment.

“I’d like to address why you faked your death. Why did you do it?” Fury asked me.

“I didn’t fake my death.” I answered truthfully. “I just failed to kill myself, but then I was thought to be dead, so I let it be.”

“Why did you want to kill yourself?” The glasses dude asked me.

I really didn’t want to answer that question, so I said, “My reasons will remain with me.” I glared slightly at the man who asked me that. He looked away quickly.

Everyone looked kind of shocked at my statement, like they were expecting me to spill my life story to them just because they asked me to. Fury looked at me calmly. “I’d like to address something else you said before the others came in. You said that there might not be problem now, which is true, but you also said that there was probably going to be if certain people knew you were alive. Why did you say that?”

I gave him a look that said, ‘Are you serious? I just answered that question!’ I sighed, then ran my hand through my hair. “Well, lets just say I have a lot of enemies who would gladly want to kill me themselves. I’d much rather have them thinking I was dead, than anyone getting hurt because they came after me.” I flinched at the words that came out of my mouth visibly, and shrank in my seat. I clutched the table with one hand, while with the other I pinched myself in my jean’s pocket. The world was still dimming down slowly. I steeled my nerves and pinched myself harder digging into my skin as much as I could with my nails. During all of this the words I said still rang in my head echoing, sometimes adding other words, sometimes overlapping to make nonsense, and sometimes the words rearranged themselves to something even more psychologically painful. *I don’t want anyone getting hurt because they came after me. Everyone got hurt because they came after me. Anyone who is near me gets hurt. They come after me, anyone close gets hurt. Everyone got hurt because of me.* The last one was like a punch in the gut. Everything else was blocked out, so I was numbly aware of someone yelling my name at me. I only jolted up and was aware when someone shouted like they were about to be killed, “Perseus Jackson!” 

The voice turned out be Fury’s. When I looked at him, he had the most annoyed face that the human face could make, it was so utterly ridiculous, that for the first time in three years, I smiled for real. It wasn’t a half smile to hide my pain or a fake smile that I had practiced in the mirror, neither was it a forced smile to make everyone think I was okay. This was a full blown ear-to-ear smile. I smiled so big I thought my face was going to break. I didn’t think it was possible, but Fury’s face got even more annoyed. That made his face look, well, I can’t even describe how funny it was. I then started to laugh, truly laugh. I laughed so hard and so big, that I started to cry. I heard others start to go into giggle fits, which turned into full blown laughter, but their laughs couldn’t compare to mine. I was at the point to where I could hardly breath, I was laughing so much. It felt so good to laugh this openly, even if it was with a couple of strangers.

“Your…face,” I wheezed in between laughs and short breaths. “It’s hilarious…” 

Fury glared at me, but honestly, it was the most pitiful glare I’ve seen in my entire life. Even Clarisse’s glare that was directed towards me when I was twelve was a better glare than his.

After my laughing was done, and I could finally breath normally I informed him. “And by the way, your glare is the equivalent of a slightly mad puppy.” Chuckles were heard all around the table. And Fury looked at me with frustration. “Before you say anything, I have a reputation for ticking off people more powerful than me. My Aunts, my Uncles, My Grandfathers and Grandmothers, and even my Great-Grandfathers, all of which are on my father’s side. I, luckily, haven’t ticked him off yet. Gods know what would happen if I did.”

Fury raised an eyebrow at that, “Gods?” 

I forced myself not to look panicked and replied, “Yeah, I’m Polytheistic, I believe in the Greek and Roman Gods.”

“I thought that the Greeks and the Romans had different religions?” Said the guy wearing glasses.

“Nope, the Greeks had their Gods first, but then the Romans took their Gods, changed their name and some of their qualities, and they became Roman.” I answered.

“What do you mean they changed some of their qualities?” Asked the red haired chick.

“Well, for example, they made Athena into Minerva, and made her the Goddess of crafts and wisdom, they didn’t respect Athena and thought that she wasn’t a maiden Goddess, so they thought she shouldn’t be a goddess of battle strategy, like the Greeks did. They also took all of the Gods and made them more barbaric and strict in their personalities.” I answered.

“But Athena had lots of children in the myths.” The glasses guy inquired.

“Don’t use the M-word around me. And yes, she did have children, but they were born like Athena was born, from the mind, so she is still technically a maiden Goddess. Can we please stop questioning my religion now, I would like to know your names so I don’t have to refer to you by your appearance. I know that two of you already told me your name, but…well, my memory’s kind of bad, so…” I said.

The red haired chick looked at me and replied with, “Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow. In case you didn’t know, that’s an Arachnid.” I mentally winced at the last word, it reminded me of *You-Know-Where. (*in case you’ve had a brain fart, that’s Tartarus.)

The guy who looked like a walking American flag replied with, “Steve Rodgers, Captain America. I’m a super soldier.”

I wisely replied with, “A what-what?”

“A super soldier.” Steve answered, I gave him a blank look. Everyone started to stare at me.

“What do you know about the Battle of New York?” Fury asked me curiously. 

“The what?” I asked. Had there been another war, or did the mortals think that the Second Titan war was a war they were fighting too? 

“Come on kid, aliens came through a portal in the middle of the sky and attacked New York, if we didn’t stop them, the whole world would be gone now.” Tony answered me, I gritted my teeth when he called me a kid.

“Aliens? Portal? New York? When was this?” I asked, I was so confused now.

“Three years ago, in this month a few weeks earlier than today.” Fury answered me. It made perfect sense now, that was when Annabeth and I were in The Pit together. “Where were you?” Fury asked.

“I was in Greece running an errand for my Dad, Aunts, Uncles, and cousins.” I answered coolly.

“We don’t seem to have your father on file, why is that?” Fury asked me.

“Well, my Dad left before I was born, and became lost at sea. I never knew him until I was twelve , and have only seen him a few times since, he’s also one of the many people who think that I’m dead along with my Mom. He’s probably not on your file because my Mom and him weren’t legally married.” I answered.

“Why didn’t you at least tell your parents you were alive?” Asked the bow guy. “I’m Clint Barton, by the way, also known as Hawkeye.”

“They would’ve made me go back, they wouldn’t understand fully why I couldn’t go back.” I answered. “Believe me, I wanted to barge into my apartment and wrap her in a hug when I saw her crying over me, but when I got to where I was going to I would have to fake everything to my friends that were still there. I didn’t want to do that to them a second time.”

“I’m Dr. Bruce Banner, and excuse me if I’m passing on sensitive territory, but, you said that you would have to fake everything for your friends that were still there. Are you saying that some of your friends have died?” He asked.

I smiled sadly at him and answered truthfully, because he did ask nicely and insinuated that I didn’t have to answer if I didn’t want to, I liked that, so decided to answer his question in thanks. “It’s okay, and yeah, a lot of my friends have died, too many, in fact, and most died right in front of me.”

Everyone looked shocked at this, except Thor, who had a curious look on his face. I grew panicked, he knew me somehow, and I knew how to, sort of, but now I had to leave before Thor spilled the beans about my heritage. “Well, I can see my life is making you depressed, so if you will kindly tell me where my bags are, I will leave and leave you to get back to hearing slightly less depressing lives.”

Thor gasped suddenly and stared at me with amazement, he’d figured out who I was. “You are Perseus Jackson, Savior and Hero of Olympus! Stories of your adventures, your bravery, and your loyalty is told throughout the halls of Asgard. It is an honor to meet such a fine hero.”

I bolted out of my chair and sprinted out a door, behind me I heard yelling, warbled questions, and footsteps coming close.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I seriously have no stable plot written out, so this story might not get finished, but I’ll do my best.

*Natasha Romanov*

Once Thor finished saying that it was an honor to meet such a fine hero, Percy bolted out of his chair, and headed out the door Bruce, Tony, and I came through. I sprinted out after him, behind me I heard yelling, questions like ‘how do you know him?’ and ‘he’s a hero?’ being asked. Percy was running, and from my specialty in interrogation, I knew that he was scared about what Thor said. I didn’t know why, but when I thought back to how his eyes widened slightly at Fury asking him about why he said ‘Gods’, what he said about going through things that would make any person insane, and how he was older and more mature because of it, it snapped into place. The Greek and Roman Gods were real, that was why Thor knew him, and it was why Percy knew so much about the Gods like he had met them himself. The reason he didn’t have good clothes and proper food made sense, he was thought dead by Gods, not an easy thing to pull off, and he wanted to stay that way, so he didn’t make himself noticeable. It was why he said that he had ticked off a lot of his relatives, most of them were evil, and wanted to take over the world. He must have been sent on perilous quests, and saving the world? That was taxing, and many people died, leaving you to fake things, like Percy mentioned. I was still confused on why he flinched when his full name was said and why he flinched at his own words earlier, but I was certain that I would find out later, because Fury wasn’t interested in locking Percy up like a common criminal. Fury wanted to recruit him to the Avengers, but Fury definitely didn’t know about the Greek and Roman Gods thing.

Percy was taking random turns, and it was clear he didn’t know where he was going, but I did, we were headed toward the labs. While running after him, I contacted Clint and told him to head to the labs via the air vents. When we reached the end of the hallway, the double doors to the lab were there and Percy’s bags were in plain sight in the middle of the floor.

“Huh, what do you know? Good luck for once.” Percy muttered to himself. He pushed open the double doors and walked in barricading the doors behind him using a metal bar, he smirked at me and waved. He turned back to his bags, and I smirked when I saw Clint there facing him.

Clint shot at his legs, but Percy stepped out of the way just in time, even though he didn’t see the arrow coming, which was impressive. Percy spun and faced Clint in a crouched position. I couldn’t tell whether it was for offence, or defense, but instead, it seemed like he was in the position to do either if need be. That showed some real training there, if I had been less trained, even I wouldn’t be able to tell what he was trying to do with the position he was in. That was beyond impressive, it took years of training and personal experience to be able to confuse someone with a position like that. 

It made sense with his heritage though, they must have somewhere safe where all of the godlings go so normal people don’t find out about them and decide to murder them because they are half god. And if all the Greek and Roman myths were true, then there were probably two different camps, one for the Greeks and one for the Romans because of the rivalry and bad blood between the two since the ancient times. Also if the myths were true, then the camps also protected the godlings from the monsters that existed. It all pieced together nicely, well that part anyway, most of what has happened, I can’t fit it with what I already know.

Anyway, Percy was facing Clint, suddenly, he whipped out a…is that a pen?! It didn’t make sense, what was a pen supposed to do? I then noticed that along the side there was some kind of ancient writing…that glowed. It was a weapon. I waved at Clint, when he looked over at me, we had a silent conversation where I told him to be careful because the pen was a weapon. Clint replied with a look that said, ‘seriously? I’ll be fine, don’t get your panties in a twist Natasha’. Percy was obviously a little smug about his position, he had a small half smile and his eyes danced with excitement. Clint notched his bow and aimed at Percy. 

“I don’t want to shoot you!” Clint said.

“Oh,” Percy said, quirking an eyebrow. “You didn’t say that the first time, how do I know you won’t just shoot me with a poisoned arrow again?” 

“You don’t,” Clint said, “You just have to trust me on it.”

“Good thing I don’t, I don’t know you, I don’t know why you guys didn’t know I was dead, but I don’t want to be in a prison or forced to work with you because a dude that wants to kill me shows up. I just want to be left alone.” Percy replied, he took off the cap and the pen shimmered into a baseball bat and a wave of glowing mist rippled out of it. My mind went into a jumble as soon as it touched me. I was trying to convince myself that the bat didn’t appear out of nowhere. He had always had it didn’t he? No, he had just picked the bat up off the ground. My mind steeled itself and I looked again, the pen had transformed into a sword that was a shiny bronze color and it glowed. Clint’s face was confused for a few seconds, then he immediately became on guard. 

“How do you have a sword?” Clint asked him.

Percy looked surprised, “You can actually see Riptide. Huh.” He said, sounding impressed. “Whatever, Thor already said my achievements, so I guess I don’t care.”

Clint looked conflicted, but fired at Percy’s legs. Percy moved lightning fast and deflected the arrow with his sword and moved to where his back was against the door and got in a defensive position. Clint seemed to steel his nerves and began to shoot at him directly. Percy blocked all of the arrows with his sword, but kept the defensive even when Clint put his bow away. When he vanished and reappeared next to his bags, my mouth dropped in surprise. He picked them up, but out from behind him, Fury gripped one of his shoulders.

“You’re even more impressive than I first thought Percy. Why don’t we go back to the conference room and have a chat.” Fury said.

“Says the guy who wanted me arrested for being a terrorist, you realize I knew you were coming toward me, right?” Percy asked calmly.

“What? How?” Fury asked incredulously, I was surprised, this was the first emotion that I had seen on Fury’s face besides anger and annoyance.

“Not important, but I will have ‘a chat’,” Percy used air quotes with his fingers. “with you, but then I’m leaving. So I’m taking my bags with me.” Percy said, shouldering his bags with ease, this impressed me, I could lift them, but barely, this kid must be strong.

“Fine, but on one condition, we have to check your duffel bag.” Fury said. Percy rolled his eyes but nodded all the same. We walked back to the conference room and we all had the same seats as last time.

Percy set his duffel bag on the table and his suitcase on the floor. He started taking things out, mostly it was pictures, some in frames, but most of the pictures were loose. The pictures showed multiple teenagers, a woman holding various blue items in many pictures, a man that looked exactly like Percy, and Percy himself with a full blown smile on his face with his arms wrapped around a blonde headed girl with gray eyes. This girl also had multiple photos of her. Percy looked better with a smile on his face, and in this picture, his eyes seemed a lot happier than now. When I looked up at Percy, his face was void of emotion, but his eyes swirled, then I noticed something I didn’t see before - he had a prominent, solid gray streak in his hair.

“What’s the gray hair from?” I asked.

He didn’t look up, but answered, “I got it trying to save my girlfriend. That’s her,” he said pointing to the blonde girl. “Her name is A-Annabeth.” 

“Where is she now?” I asked without much thought. 

Percy’s head hung down so his hair covered his face, “She’s dead.” He answered simply.

“Show us which ones are your Mom and Dad.” Fury ordered

“You said I had to show you what was in my bag, not explain who they are, so no.” Fury looked irked. 

Then he dragged the bag to the other end of the table. “I have weapons from all of my friends that died, to remember them. Though I don’t use any of them.” He pulled out a simple bow with simple arrows that had golden arrow tips in a simple brown arrow case. All and all, the bow and arrows didn’t look that special besides the arrow heads. He took out a spear that had a simple golden handle and what looked like a tooth that was white and gleamed without a scratch on it seated at the top of it. He then pulled out a small, beautiful dagger. The blade was triangular, and glowed like Percy’s sword, the hilt was golden, and had an intricate design.

Suddenly, his face twitched, and he dropped into the same crouch that neither showed offence or defense. His eyes scanned the room, and I got the feeling that he could see beyond what any of us here could. I felt waves of power wash over me, power that came from him. He bolted to the windows, it so fast, if I hadn’t been as trained as I was, I would’ve thought he had materialized by them.

“I need to go.” He said simply.

“Why?” Fury asked furiously.

“Some of my old friends are here, they’ll be able to sense me because of reasons I’m not going to explain. I need to leave before they notice me, I prefer to be thought dead.” While talking he had bolted back to the table and started packing the weapons he had pulled out back inside, then carefully put in the framed pictures and the loose ones. He shouldered his bags, but then suddenly gasped, his eyes flashed with pain that didn’t show on his face. “Stupid arrow.” He muttered darkly at Clint, he then switched his bags to his other shoulder.

“Wait,” Clint said, Percy paused. “Explain how you do the disappear and reappear thing. Are you with Loki?”

“Who the heck is Loki?” Clint opened his mouth to explain, but Percy rolled his eyes and interrupted. “Whatever, I don’t want to know, they’re coming closer and I’m losing time. It’s a power that surfaced recently, I break down my body into water particles, then reassemble them wherever I want. I’ve practiced with it enough that it’s instantaneous, and it doesn’t wear me out. Now I’m leaving.”

“Not so fast, whether you agree willingly or not you are joining this team. That’s why I wanted the Avengers to track you down. And it was so hard to find you, you moved around a lot, disappeared off the grid, and even seemed to evade me when you were in that bus crash and in the hospital for months. It was almost like you didn’t exist! You gave a false name to everyone you met, even the doctors, and surprisingly, the name was on file with your medical records. Your files are even on S.H.I.E.L.D.! Why did you have your false name be Peter Johnson? How did you make the files?” Fury seemed very frustrated with Percy. All of our mouths dropped, he had that much trouble tracking down the kid? So that was why he wanted us to bring in Percy at all costs. 

“Peter Johnson is what I was called by my director, he would continuously get everyone’s name wrong, so it just came to mind. As for the files, I went to online computer programming classes, then hacked into the online birth records. I then made it to where my birth year made sense with how old I look physically, and transferred all the medical information from my old file, leaving out all the instances I had with police, and changing the dates a bit to make sense with my birth. I then hacked into all of the hospitals that were on the file, and simply copied the information they had down for me onto a file I inserted under my false name in case a hospital I would go in calls for records from that hospital. I’m not working with you, whatever you say, you’re not going to convince me that I need to.” Percy said, ending with a venomous tone. 

Our jaws dropped at what he said he had done, it was like he was some evil mastermind. I stared at him along with the others.

Tony looked at Percy like he was his idol. “You did all that with only online computer classes?” He sounded amazed. “I’m a genius and it took me three months to figure out how to first hack into S.H.I.E.L.D, now I can hack in in about one minute, but that was after multiple computer classes of all variety, many simple hackings, hackings of other government agencies, and trial and error all around. How about you, the boy that supposedly did all of that with just online computer programming classes?”

Percy hummed thoughtfully.“Well, I took a year of online computer classes, which I aced, then it took me five hours to do all of the hacking, copying, and pasting of my files for my birth certificate and medical files. Then it took me about two days to hack into all of the government agencies and put my files in there, then it took about another hour to cover my tracks and make it seem like my files were there all along. And to think I used to be such an idiot I barely made D’s in school.” He replied, I was pretty sure that everyone’s jaws dropped even more. Tony looked at him in utter, and complete shock, I think he was having a panic attack at the fact that he, the resident genius and downright smartest person in hacking I’ve ever seen, got bested by a kid that-apparently- pretty much almost failed every single class he’s ever took in school.

“Perseus, please-” Thor started. 

Percy flinched visibly, and his eyes seemed to darken. “It’s Percy, get that through your thick, Asgardian skull Thor.”

Everyone gasped, but Thor didn’t seem angry or hurt in the slightest. “Why do you not like your name, Perseus? Perseus is a great name to be called. Perseus, you were named after a hero of great standing, you should be proud to have a good of a name such as Perseus.” Percy flinched every time his full name was said, his eyes getting darker, foggier, duller, as Thor spoke. The last one seemed to hit him like a punch in the gut, his eyes completely glazed over, then they rolled into the back of his head, and he fell to the floor. 

I stared at the motionless body, along with everyone else.

Fury was the first to react. “I want you to get him to your lab Bruce, and put him in the containment room, strap him down, and put the same magical hold we used on Loki to keep him from teleporting off somewhere. I want you to then give him a physical exam while he’s unconscious.” 

Bruce nodded reluctantly, “Will you carry him to the lab, Steve?”

“Sure,” Steve said, also looking very reluctant to do what Fury ordered. He picked up Percy easily, then Fury led the way to the lab.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains graphic depictions of scars and mentions of torture.

*Bruce Banner*

I followed Steve down to one of the more secure medical rooms, the ones meant for injured enemies. We seemed to be going slow on purpose, so I let Steve keep me behind while the others surpassed us and kept on following Fury. I was nervous about what I would find during this physical. The way Percy’s eyes seemed to get more fogged and dull each time his full name was said was a clear sign of PTSD and very painful experiences having to deal with his full name being said. The way he flinched back, the way he seemed to go off in la-la land when he said that he was pretending to be dead so no one would get hurt because someone found out he was alive, this and more pointed to severe PTSD.

Once everyone was out of earshot-and out of sight-Steve cleared his throat. “Um… Bruce he has, um, flashbacks, like I do, but they seem a lot worse.” 

I looked at Steve with concern, it had taken a lot of courage for him to talk about his flashbacks. I was honored he trusted me enough to tell me about it, and I had kept my promise about not telling anyone about it, because he asked me to. I did, however, often hint at him that he could tell the others, that they wouldn’t treat him any different. 

Being the stubborn man he is, Steve insisted that letting one person know was enough, and that if the whole team knew he had flashbacks, then they wouldn’t perform as well because they would see that their leader was weak, and that that would make them think they were even weaker than he was. It was stupid, cliché leader thinking. They would pull all the stress onto themselves and convince themselves that they had to be strong for everyone, so that everyone in turn could be strong. It was a stupid logic to me, because I knew from experience that sharing your troubles and your weaknesses and faults with others made you-and them-stronger, not weaker. No matter how many times I told Steve this, he just shook it off, and kept the weight of the world on his shoulders, and kept his pain to himself. 

Well, he did, until he told me about his flashbacks. His insecurities. He pretty much spilled to me everything bad that he had ever done and everything bad that had happened to him, every blame he had pinned on himself. He basically gave me his soul. I still have no idea why he told me all of that. Why he chose to bear his soul to me of all people, it didn’t make sense, but I was glad that he had finally laid his burdens on someone else.

When we reached the exam room the others were standing outside of, they left to go back to a meeting room nearby to wait for the results of Percy’s exam. Steve laid Percy down carefully on the exam table, then strapped him down. I went over to the control panel and turned on the thing that sapped his magical abilities, hopefully making it to where he couldn’t use his powers. There was still no official name for the device, since it was recently made by Tony with help from the very unwilling lab rat known as Loki. Tony had a bunch of stupid names for the device, such as The Sappinator, or The No-Magic Machine, and other names like that. I was a scientist, I was not going to call a machine that held that kind of power something as very unprofessional as that, it seemed to demean the machine and capabilities. 

I went to Percy’s shoulder, remembering how he had hissed in pain when he had pulled the bag onto his shoulder, I was surprised he wasn’t bleeding out the entire time we were talking to him. The doctor in me wanted to instantly sweep in with gauze and disinfectant to treat the wound, but the newly formed agent in me knew that Percy could be a threat and could use the fact that I wanted to help him against me, so I stayed put while I silently tortured and berated myself. 

I looked at the place where Clint shot him, and was surprised to find that there wasn’t blood on his ‘shirt’. Because really, his shirt had so many holes and tears and rips, it was basically hanging together by threads, literally, the only thing that seemed unaffected about his shirt was the middle front of it, and even that didn’t look too good. It clearly had had words on it once, but was so faded and old, you couldn’t make out anything, there were still a few rips and burn marks, but not as many. The entire bottom of his shirt and the bottom of both of his sleeves were singed and so mangled, that it looked like the fabric had pulled apart, to where the threads hung by themselves.

I pulled back the fabric from his shoulder, and I blinked in surprise. Where there should have been a humongous hole with blood pouring out, there was a big, inflamed scar that was on either side of his shoulder. I felt my mouth fall open a smidge. It was impossible for anyone to be able to heal that fast from something like that. Even Steve, the super soldier with the super healing couldn’t heal that fast from something like that. It was like all the stuff that was inside his body had magically restored itself to its former condition seamlessly, in a very short amount of time. It seemed that at the rate Percy healed, in the next twenty minutes or so, what should’ve been a gaping, serious wound, would be a simple scar.

I rubbed at my face, before this, I expected whatever life threw at me next wasn’t going to surprise me at all. It now seemed as if there were going to be a lot more surprises and shocks coming my way with this new addition to the team. Fury, apparently, wanted to add Percy as a new member to the Avengers. Though that wasn’t said specifically in the file, it did say, and I quote, ‘the target will be contained then questioned, if seen as a threat and essentially evil, rehabilitation will be put in effect. If target seems willing and not essentially bad, we feel that he could be helpful if the target was put on the team.’ Though the file didn’t say what team Percy could be helpful to, it made it pretty obvious with the fact it said ‘the team’ not ‘a team’.

I sighed and rubbed at my face wearily again, then pulled his sleeve back up. The only other evidence that he could’ve been shot in the shoulder - besides the scar - were the holes on either side of his arm where the arrow went through his ‘shirt’. 

Steve looked at me questioningly, “What?”

I sighed, then rubbed my temples at the growing migraine that had appeared. “Well, it seems that Percy here has faster healing abilities than even you do.” Steve opened his mouth to say something, but I interrupted with, “And no, I do not know how, or why, or what could’ve happened. I have no idea. It should be impossible, but considering the world we’re in, it’s safe to say that now, nothing is impossible. Just highly improbable.” 

Steve blinked at me in surprise, like he couldn’t believe that I knew not that much more than he did. I stood up and walked over to the surgery tools, and picked up a pair of scissors. I went back to the unconscious body of Percy and pulled at his shirt so I could cut it away and see if he had any more injuries that I might actually be able to treat, but with how fast he healed, I highly doubted he had anything besides scars. Percy’s eyes snapped open, and he jerked his body away from me as far as the restraints would let him when he saw the scissors in my hand getting ready to cut off his shirt. I blinked in surprise, I hadn’t expected him to be conscious this soon. Steve stiffened in surprise next to me.

“What are you doing?” Percy asked cautiously.

“I was assigned to give you an exam, I was about to cut off your shirt to see if you had any other severe injuries, like broken bones in your torso or other wounds that need to be treated.” I answered truthfully.

“I don’t have any.” Percy answered immediately.

“Even if that was true, I still need to look at your torso so I can check your health, it would be easier for me to measure your heart rate and to get proper readings for other various medical tests. Then I would need to check your reflexes, do you want me to check your reflexes first instead? Until I say I need to, I won’t touch your torso or look underneath your clothes.” I told him, he seemed reluctant to let me examine him for any injuries around his torso.

Percy nodded hesitantly, I looked at Steve expectantly, he took the hint and left the exam room. “Okay then, I’m going to have to put two bracelets on you, then we can take of the straps binding you down. We merely strapped you down in the first place so you wouldn’t move around while unconscious.” I said, the bracelets I was going to put on him were connected to the machine that was supposed to sap his powers, this would allow free movement while still containing him within the base.

The bracelets were a shiny silver color that shined and emitted light, I snapped them on his wrists, then started undoing the straps binding him down. Once I was done, Percy sat up and started tapping his fingers against his thigh in an indescribable rhythm, his eyes darted around the room, pausing on the door and the various furnishings around the room. It was like he was scanning the room for any advantages or disadvantages that it held for him, and taking stock of possible escape routes. That definitely stuck out as a foreboding of how bad his past really was.

I did basic reflex tests on his legs and arms by messing with his knee and elbow. I then did a focus test to see how well he focused on certain things, this would tell me more about his personality, but basically did nothing else for any benefit of how well he was physically. Next, I checked all of his nerves and made sure that they were working correctly by mini shocks on different parts of his arms, face, and legs, I stayed true to my word and didn’t touch his torso, or moved his clothes without first asking.

I noticed before that all of his clothes had rips and tears, and burn marks all around, his shirt being the worst, his shoes coming in at a close second, with his jeans being the piece of clothing that was relatively good, and even they were in bad shape. The bottoms were in tatters, barely hanging on to the top of his jeans, the rips stopped around his thighs, I had no doubt that if he kept on going as he was, he would soon be wearing shorts instead of pants.

I took out a clipboard with some blank pieces of paper on it, and got ready to write. “Okay, now that we’re done with that, do you have any diseases, diagnoses that we need to know about? What’s the last time you had a physical or checkup or anything remotely related to that kind of thing? We also need basic information about your guardians and possible past guardians.” I told him, Percy nodded.

“I don’t have any diseases, I think. I’m diagnosed with ADHD, Dyslexia, and…um…nothing else.” Percy’s eyes darted to the floor and he chewed his lip, he was hiding a diagnosis, but I wasn’t going to pressure him into telling me it. It wasn’t my place to pry, and I wasn’t going to do it no matter what Fury said. “The last time I had anything remotely similar to this was about three to five years ago…I’m not exactly sure. My mother is Sally Jackson, but she recently remarried and is now known as Sally Blofis-it’s not Blowfish but Blofis. My first stepfather was Gabe Ugliano,” At this name Percy flinched-it was barely noticeable-but it was enough to catch my attention, he had had bad experiences with his first stepfather. “but my mother decided to keep her maiden name, he disappeared without a trace when I was twelve. He hasn’t been found, so my mother legally divorced him, then married my new stepfather Paul Blofis about um…four or three years after she legally divorced Gabe when I was twelve, five months after Gabe disappeared. My father is Adrian Black*,” At this he smirked, but I didn’t have the faintest idea why. (A/N:*I made it to where Poseidon’s false name was related to the sea. His false name is after the Adriatic Sea and the Black Sea, both of which are in Europe/Asia, which makes them both relatively close to Greece*) “As you already know, he and my mother were never legally married, he went off on a ship into ocean for his job, but he didn’t come back, so he missed my birth, my mom didn’t give up hope that he was alive, she constantly told me growing up that he wasn’t dead, just lost at sea. He finally was able to come back when I was twelve, and it was the first time I officially met my dad. We’ve only seen each other a handful of times since. As you also know, they think that I’m dead along with the rest of world, except-miraculously-you guys! Isn’t that wonderful.” Percy said, his voice dripping with sarcasm at the end. I struggled to keep up with him as I wrote the information down on the clipboard.

“I’m going to have to ask you to take off your shirt now Percy.” I told Percy with a calm voice, but inside…I was freaking out, what was I going to find underneath his ratty t-shirt?

Percy glanced around nervously, then he seemed to concentrate on something. The bracelets on his wrists seemed to glow brighter, then they died down. Percy looked at them with hatred. “What are these things?” 

He was trying to escape. “They dampen powers, we have only recently developed it into this form, before, the power was only limited to the table you're sitting on when it is plugged into the main machine. Thor found the metal, it’s from Asgard. Now, if you do not want to take your shirt off willingly so I can finish my exam, I’m afraid I’m going to have to force it off of you.” I informed Percy, and let my eyes flash green for a second when he looked me in the eyes. Percy didn’t really react that much, just blinked as if he wasn’t expecting it.

Percy’s eyes darted around the room again, I could practically hear the gears turning in his head, trying to figure out a way that he could get out of this. Then, he sighed and slumped-looking almost defeated-and nodded his head in a miniscule way, apparently he had resigned himself to the fact that he was not getting out of this.

Percy chewed on his bottom lip for a second, then slowly reached for the hem of his ‘shirt’. Once he had had gripped it in his hands firmly, he took a deep breath, then he suddenly whipped his ‘shirt’ off, then stared at the floor.

I stared, my brain couldn’t process what I was seeing, it was horrible, The Other Guy urged me to let him out, to let him smash whoever had done this to him. I saw my eyes flash green in the metal cabinet behind Percy, and I could see my skin take on a greenish tint. I almost gave in to the deep seated anger that was always there, but then I noticed Percy squirming with discomfort, I noticed his hands were shaking, and his eyes darted around with the look of a caged and wild animal. I forced myself to calm down, I could slowly feel the power from The Other Guy fade away, and my skin went back to normal.

“Percy…” I started, but I was unsure of how to continue. Percy looked up at me, and his eyes held fear, shame, anger, but most of all, they held sadness. “Who did this to you?” 

Percy looked down again, “No one important.”

“Of course they are important, we need to know who did this so we can punish them for what they did, this,” I gestured to his torso. “this isn’t right, no one should get away free doing this to anyone. We can track whoever did this down.” 

Percy chuckled, but it was void of any actual emotion. “I’m afraid you can’t do that.”

“And why not?”

“Because they are already dead.”

It was awkward after that. I nervously did regular tests, like measure his heartbeat, take his blood pressure, measure his size, and many other things. Throughout the entire ordeal, I had to keep The Other Guy in check, my anger was bursting out the seems, and it seemed like I would turn any minute, but I kept it together. Each time I did something, I saw a new scar, a new gash, a new mark of some kind that showed a horrible truth. Percy had either had a very abusive past, or he had been tortured. At the time, I wish I knew that it was both.

**depictions of scars after here**

The scars were everywhere, in every shape, size, and age. There was a scar on his back that was about two inches wide, and went from his right shoulder to below his hip on the left, it seemed fairly new, the area around it was still red, I was surprised that this wasn’t fully healed because of his healing speed. Older scars, along with newer ones, of little white marks that looked like whip lashes, small cuts here and there that looked to be made by an average knife. Words engraved into his back that differed in age. The oldest carvings held words like ‘freak’, ‘worthless’, ‘brain boy’, and ‘idiot’. The newer ones held words like ‘failure’, ‘weak’, ‘betrayed’, and ‘worthless’ was once again used. I was surprised to find that he didn’t have any broken bones. On his back, there were also one inch slashes that crisscrossed like the whip marks, they seemed to be made from a sword or something similar. There were burn marks of letters and sayings, like he was branded, these mostly spanned his shoulders and the area of his hips. A fancy ‘G’ was on the side of each shoulder. ‘All your fault’, and ‘You will never be forgiven’ spanned across his hips. That was just the beginning… his chest was just as bad.

There were slashes that looked to be very old, and looked to be made by a knife of some sort. There was yet another scar that was two inches thick, but it consisted of many cuts that melded together, it was right over the area of his heart. It looked like someone had slashed there, waited for the scar to heal, then slashed right next to it to make the scar bigger gradually. Whip marks were again shown, but there were more of them, and they seemed even more gruesome even though they were healed. The message ‘You failed us’ spanned all the way across his chest from his left shoulder to the bottom of his right hip, a reflection of the way the two inch scar on his back went. Long one inch slashes crisscrossed his sides, straying onto either the front or back of his torso. There were many more scars, so many more scars that I couldn’t even begin to describe, they were that horrible.

**depictions of scars stops here**

“Percy, I’m really sorry, but I think the others have to see this, so they know not to aggravate your scar tissue.” I said. “Before we do that, if you're up to it, of course, I need to let out the anger I’ve been keeping in. If you’ll excuse me for a moment.” I then went to the Hulk-proof room that was included in all medical rooms incase I had to calm down and release my anger. It seemed as if those rooms had been built for just this moment. The moment I was bursting at the seams with anger, the moment I could barely contain The Other Guy, a moment like this.

I went into the room, closed the door, locked it, then let it all loose.


	10. Chapter 10

*Percy Jackson*

I grabbed my shirt off of the floor and slipped it on again, hasty to cover my many scars up. The scars that showed the torture that I endured in Tartarus, the scars that showed my horrible past. I stared at the device that was placed on my wrist to keep me from escaping, the lock system on each bracelet was obviously complex, so I gave up trying to figure out how to escape. I focused more on zoning out the muffled crashes and roars coming from the room where Bruce went to ‘let out his anger’, as he said so very cryptically. I didn’t know what that meant exactly, but I could guess that it had something to do with how his eyes flashed green earlier. 

I wrung my hands nervously as I thought of showing these people my scars, my wounds, my past. I could guess this was why the Fates kept me alive, so I could help this group of people somehow, someway, and it was going to happen one way or another, because it was my fate, my destiny, to be here. I knew this because everything in my life had happened for a reason. An example was when Annabeth and I fell into Tartarus. It was no accident, the Fates devised Annabeth falling-and in repercussion-me as well, so that we could close the Doors of Death to be able to actually kill the monsters that Gaea had in her army.

I still, even though I saw my string, believe that the Fates were weaving my life thread with barbwire. No life could be so miserable without it being weaved differently than anyone else’s. I hoped that, somehow, I could become un-immortalized, so that I could die and rejoin my friends in Elysium, which is where they all were, no doubt. 

The crashes and roars got steadily louder, until I couldn’t even think one thought without it being interrupted by a crash or roar from the room Bruce went into. Now you might be wondering why I didn’t go into the room to investigate the mysterious, disturbing noise. Um…have you ever seen a horror movie? That’s how people killed by the crazy horror part of the movie, and yeah…I knew that I was immortal, but that didn’t stop me from feeling pain. A stab to the heart is extremely painful, believe me, it happened in The Pit when I was in there the second time, before I was immortal. Kronos just kept reversing time to bring me back to life, but I still had the wound…somehow. 

Anyway, I wasn’t very surprised that at one point the rest of the people that captured me burst into the room after one deafening roar that made me feel like my eardrums had exploded (yes, this had happened to me before too…all I can say was that it is horrible being deaf). They all looked at me incredulously, like I was an idiot for just sitting there calmly. Well, I knew better than to leave this room, for all I knew these bracelets also prevented me from leaving the room they were activated in, and when I tried I would get zapped with the force of a lightning bolt. (I know what this feels like, minimally, because Zeus being Zeus, tried to kill me because I was being my sarcastic self, he thankfully missed...by a couple of centimeters. I’m pretty sure that if he killed me, it would have started World War III, and I’m also pretty sure that it would have been the most bloodiest, violent war ever. Ares would probably go all evil war god on humanity and encourage even more bloodshed, and basically do everything in his power to keep the war going on for years).

“Do you not hear that?” Asked Natasha incredulously.

“You mean the mysterious, disturbing noise that is coming from the room Bruce went into? Yes, yes I do. And I know enough horror stories to know to not walk in there like the clichéd blonde chick they showcase as an idiot. With my luck, if I opened that door there’s probably going to be a monster that has possessed Bruce into making roars like a Dragon, and turned him into one. Is Bruce, like, a mutant or something? Because his eyes flashed green during the physical thing. I won’t judge if he is, I mean, I’m certainly not in a position to. The green was like an avocado green. Have you guys ever had avocados? They are actually quite delicious, but they are not as delicious as my mother’s cooking, nothing can top that…” I then was slightly depressed, and wondering how that answer had gotten so off topic…oh, wait, ADHD…right. That’s embarrassing, I forgot my own mental disorder. They stared at me like I was crazy. “Sorry, ADHD. Messes up my thought process sometimes. Makes me talk a whole bunch and get strangely off topic.” 

“Okay…” Steve said. “Well, I’m going to check in on Bruce. See if he’s all Hulked out, try to calm him down. I wonder what set him off?”

Oh, it was nothing, just the horrible scars I’m hiding under my very old and worn shirt from the seemingly endless torture I’ve sustained over the years. Nothing huge.

Before Steve could even put his hand on the doorknob, the door opened, and out walked Bruce. He was out of breath and a pale shade of green that was fading to reveal his normal skin color. I was barely able to see into the room he was leaving, but what I saw shocked me. There pieces of concrete scattered on the floor, what looked like to be the remains of a car, and a square of shiny metal* that wasn’t even dented, but looked to be very old. (*The metal is the same metal as Cap’s shield, which can withstand Hulk’s punches) All in all, the room looked to be destroyed along with the various contents that were in there. 

“Are you okay Big Green?” Tony asked Bruce, he merely nodded in response.

“What got you so worked up Bruce?” Steve asked gently.

By now Bruce looked like he was back to being his relatively normal self. “It was something I found during my physical with Percy.” Bruce answered, gesturing to me. Everyone’s head whipped to look at me at the same moment, which was kind of creepy. “Percy, would you mind showing them?”

“Yes, I would. Very much so.” I answered, defiant against showing more people my scars so they would pity me.

“They have to know not aggravate you scar tissue, they need to see the damage so they know not to hurt you.” 

“Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t need their pity, I don’t want them to know. Besides, they can’t hurt me more than I’ve already been hurt. I can’t be killed anyway, which is terrible for me, considering I want to die.”

Bruce glared at me. “Percy, show them. They are going to pity you, that comes with every pain that is shared, but they will know you better. It will help to create a bond between us all. We all have scars, some that can’t be seen because we heal, or can’t be hurt, but they are there nonetheless, and those scars will stick with us for as long as we live. Physical scars or otherwise. Now, show them.” Bruce said forcefully.

I sighed in a woe-is-me way. “Fine, just don’t treat me different. Don’t treat me like a pathetic, broken thing, because I show you what I’m about to show you, okay?” They all nodded in agreement.

I gripped the hem of the bottom of my shirt hard. Gathering my courage to show someone, for what probably wouldn’t be the last time. I took a deep breath, then pulled off my shirt, and waited for impact.


	11. Chapter 11

*Thor*

Perseus pulled off his shirt and I stared at him with horror. No person, fine or not, should have to never go through something so tragic. There were scars everywhere. He stood up, spread his arms, and spun in a slow circle, showcasing his tortured flesh. I winced at the sight of him every time I saw a new, horrible scar. 

I noticed that Perseus was clenching his jaw, trying to keep from exploding from the amount of ogling we were giving him. I cleared my throat, everyone turned to look at me, which I noticed, made Perseus relax just a little. “Put your shirt back on Perse-” I caught myself. “Percy. I want to know, who did this to you? No one deserves such a fate, not even you, grand hero.”

“I’m not a grand hero, I’m a kid caught in bad circumstances and did everything I could to make it better. There’s a difference. Besides, there are heroes far grander than me. I didn’t do things single handedly, I had help, okay? I don’t care what you know about me, it's not all that true. And it doesn’t matter who did it, they are already dead.”

“I have heard many things of you hero, I took them to heart. All of your adventures and heroics were told throughout the halls of Asgard. Your death was mourned by many, but we thought that you had died long before you say you almost did. I thought that you were an old myth, from the times of Hercules. When you talked on the subject of the Gods like you knew them, I knew something was up. You being humble, and trying to spare us pain, and your appearance overall is what led me to figure out your identity. It may not make a difference for you to tell us who did this to you, but it will help you. You may take your time with your story, start at the beginning when you first knew if it makes you more comfortable about telling us. You may gloss over some details you don’t want us to know, but you have tell us the whole story at some point. I ask you to swear this on the River Styx.” I said, I didn’t expect him to swear, but I felt a certain satisfaction knowing that I had tried to get him to share.

“Seems like an unfair deal. I have to work with you, be a somewhat prisoner of yours, and I also have to share my past. Not cool. You guys have to throw something into the deal.” Percy pointed out, he seemed to think for a minute, the snapped his fingers. “Okay, how about this. In exchange for what Thor said, including being an equal part of this team and being able to leave whenever I want to, you guys have to tell your stories first. You can gloss if you want to, but like me you have to tell the whole complete truth at some point, and you have to tell me all about this agency. What it does, who it's run by, it’s history, things like that, and no glossing over anything whatsoever. You also have to tell me all about the Battle of New York. Sound fair?”

I looked toward my comrades, I asked them what they thought with my eyes. They all exchanged glances, because it was clear I was going to agree. They then looked back at me and nodded. “Director Fury has to be present, is that a problem?” I asked.

“Not at all.” Percy said smirking. “I, Percy Jackson, swear on the River Styx to the boundaries of the deal we have spoke about, about telling all of you about my past, telling the whole truth at some point, and being part of the team for as long as I am needed, or if I want to stay longer than that.”

“And I, Thor Odinson, swear on the River Styx, and swear on behalf of my teammates, that we treat you as an equal member, that you get to leave when you want. That we have to tell you our stories, and tell the whole truth at some point. That we have to tell you all about the agency and tell the whole truth about it, and also tell the whole truth about the Battle of New York.” I replied in turn. Thunder rolled loudly twice in the distance, signaling that our swears had been taken into account, and stored, and also foreshadowing the trouble that would ensue if we didn’t abide by the swear we made.

“Now, let us head back to the meeting room, I shall grab the tarts that pop for proficient snacking.” I said.

We all nodded, and headed to the meeting room, shortly, commander Nicholas Fury joined us in the hallway. He followed us, and we all sat down in the seats we were in before.

I informed Nicholas Fury of the deal that was made, and he nodded to say that he approved of it, but looked irked, as if he wanted to be informed first before the deal was fully made. 

“So,” Percy said, folding his hands together, placing his elbows on the table, and his chin on his hands. He stared hard at the Avengers. “Who’s telling their story first? Black Widow? Thor? The Hulk? Captain America? Or Hawkeye? Tick-Tock, sooner or later there’s going to be trouble, and we’ll have to start sooner than later, so we might as well get really far into story time before we have to fight something or we have to take a nap like the little kids we are all going to feel like.” When no one answered because of the initial sarcasm and humor of his statement, he rolled his eyes. “Come on now, don’t be shy, we haven’t got all day. Who wants to be the first one to go and get it over with?”

We all looked at each other, then burst into a loud argument about who was going when. Nobody wanted to go first and nobody wanted to go last. Finally Bruce sighed in annoyance, and said, “Fine, I guess I’ll go first. As long as it stops all of this pointless bickering.”

“I’ll go last,” Tony said smirking. “Might as well save the best for last.” Percy coughed, but it sounded like he was discretely saying ‘ego’.   
The rest of the places got decided rather quickly after that. Bruce sighed, looking reluctant. Then he began.


	12. Chapter 12

*Mount Olympus/third person*

All the Gods and goddesses gathered before the memorial, each saying their own words to pay their respects to the fallen heroes. The Gods that had helped their fellow Gods instead of joining the battle with Gaea felt the most guilt. If only they had helped Percy and Apollo face Gaea. Maybe then Annabeth wouldn’t have died, maybe then Percy wouldn’t have taken Zeus’s lightning bolt and ended his own life. ‘If only’s’ ruled these god’s lives. 

They felt extremely guilty, especially whenever the anniversary came, the anniversary of their deaths. This day was the only time Poseidon came to Mount Olympus, and each time, he looked horrible. The usual twinkle that was always in his eyes was now gone and dark circles were now always underneath them, and they got worse and worse, darker and wider around his eyes. The tan he usually sported was gone, and instead he was pale. The usual smile that he always wore was gone, and the laughter and jokes he used to eject were now replaced with frowns and he almost never talked anymore. Everytime he came to Olympus for the anniversary, he cried for hours afterward. He had gotten frailer, his cheeks had become hollow, and he was wearing clothes that were three sizes smaller than what he used to. He was so weak, he hired Hermes to transport him to Mount Olympus because he no longer could. The Gods worried he was fading away.

After the ceremony, the Gods felt a tingle in the back of their minds. This signaled that someone was about to make an oath and swear on the River Styx, they could never hear what the swear was about, just the beginning where the person stated their name then swore. The buzzing grew stronger, then stopped to let the swear through. What came next shocked them.

“I, Percy Jackson, swear on the River Styx…”

All the Gods’ mouths dropped except for Poseidon’s. An odd fire came into his eyes, then he disappeared. They felt his presence in Camp Half-Blood, and immediately joined him.  
When they got there he was screaming at them, tears in his eyes. “Who dares to swear on the Styx in my son’s name?! Why would any of you do such a thing?! For one second I dared to hope that he was still alive, then it was crushed by the reality that no one could survive the force of Zeus’s Lightning Bolt! It felt like everything in me had died, do you know what that’s like?! How dare the person that did this!” He kept on going, talking faster and faster until his words were unintelligible. A tsunami had started to form along with a hurricane. He fell to the ground crying, still yelling at the campers.

They stared in shock, by the look of things, they were in the middle of their own ceremony for their fallen friends. Hermes approached Poseidon carefully, and gently laid his hand on his shoulder. He talked to Poseidon quietly. The hurricane and tsunami slowed until they stopped, and the ocean went back to normal again. Hermes then helped Poseidon up, then teleported him back to his palace, he did not return.

“What did he mean by that? Someone sweared in Percy’s name on the Styx?” Thalia asked, approaching them. “Poseidon looked… horrible.”

“Yes, he has taken the deaths hard, especially Percy’s. Gods can hear swears made on the Styx, but we only hear the beginning, when the person states their name, but the rest is private. After our ceremony we heard someone swear on the Styx, and they swore using Percy’s name. As you can imagine, this was very shocking. Whether the person who used Percy’s name only meant it as a way to remember him, it hurt him to hear that swear. To hear his son’s name being used, as if he was still alive. It was a very hard blow to him, furthering the coffin of despair he has built for himself. I would advise you to inform all demigods never to do anything like this again.” Zeus said solemnly. 

Then the gods disappeared, leaving the campers confused and angry themselves. Why would someone use Percy’s name while swearing on the Styx? Thalia narrowed her eyes, now she was suspicious. First, Grover swears that he felt Percy’s aura, and now someone sweared using his name? Something wasn’t right about this, and Thalia was going to figure it out, no matter what. If only she could consult Nico, and ask where Percy’s soul was, because the last time she visited and asked Hades, he still wasn’t in the Underworld. Then she smiled mischievously, maybe she could consult Nico after all. With that she took off towards the woods to find Grover, she needed some music.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Background of Bruce is based off of the Hulk movies, a book called The Hulk, and the comics put together into a reasonable timeline.

*Bruce Banner*

“Well, I guess I should start with putting something straight. To give me privacy you all were given a file of me that was altered because I asked for it. You all, except for Percy of course, think that I injected myself with a needle containing a concoction that I believed would be like the Super Serum used in Steve, and the end result was the Hulk. In reality it was my father, David Banner, that injected himself. He experimented on himself with mutagens at a genetic level to let the body heal itself, and passed it onto me by blood. At the young impressionable age of three, he drilled into me that emotions were dangerous, that if I let my emotions rule me, people would get hurt, bad things would happen. Before this, because of the genetic passing down of the mutagens, I had already started to show signs of changing, morphing into something else whenever I got angry. So because of the incident at three I pushed my emotions away, grew up without them, and didn’t develope very good social skills. I also didn’t ever morph or change until I was in my late twenties because of that incident. 

“He then blew up the Desert Base he worked at because he was caught testing on human blood against orders, and he was fired and told to shut it down. He blew it up by turning off the cyclotron, a cyclotron has a long process to turn it off, by turning it off immediately it caused the cyclotron to explode. This caused me to lose my memories of my early years of life. I was put into the care of Monica Krenzler, who I grew up to believe was my mother. Therefore I thought that my name was Bruce Krenzler.

“I went to college, became a scientist, and worked in Lawrence Berkeley labs. I met a woman named Betty Ross and we started dating. We broke up one day in a cabin in our late twenties. It was because she wanted me to let her in because I was distant, didn’t show emotions or pick up on emotions well, didn’t let her know me as well as I knew myself. She told me that was part of being in a relationship. I replied that I guess we didn’t have a relationship. She asked me why I couldn’t let her in. I told her it wasn’t about letting her in, it was about letting me out. She didn’t understand and neither did I.” I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm down. Everyone was staring at me, throughout talking nearly everyone tried to open their mouth to comment, but I kept on going so I could get out what I could before I had to calm down and shove the anger back. 

“Anything need explaining before I continue?” I asked

“Who was your birth mother, you never said.” Natasha asked.

“Edith Banner.” I replied. “Anything else?”

“Thor, Tart me, blueberry if you have it.” Percy said. Thor rummaged through the Pop Tart box he had, found a blueberry, tossed it to Percy. Percy then nibbled on the corner of one, then he suddenly turned ravenous and basically inhaled them. “Well, that had to be the best thing I’ve eaten since I had that cheeseburger two days ago.”

“Was this Pop Tart the only thing you’ve had to eat since that cheeseburger?” I asked, concerned.

“Psshh, no.” Percy said. “I had… a part of a brownie in my pack and they are the equivalent of a meal, among other things that they do. I had that yesterday. It’s not unhealthy, it’s survival, and I’m not about to steal and become a criminal for actually doing an illegal thing.”

“What do you mean by ‘actually’?” Steve asked.

“That’s for my story time, not Bruce’s.” He replied. “Continue on.” He directed at me.

“Right. So, later the labs in the desert base got rebuilt, and I got a job there. Betty and her father had what you would call a falling out. He wanted her to marry some guy of his choosing and do what he told her. Betty, ever a stubborn woman, refused, and pushed away from her dad, and got a job at the desert base as well. They didn’t talk again for years.

“The base labs is where we met, and it became awkward after we broke up. Eventually, we were able to talk without sounding like nervous idiots and we could work side by side normally. We were researching how to unlock the body being able to heal itself against extreme measures, and we were testing it by using radiation. We came close, and the nanomeds we were developing almost worked, but then it failed just like all other times. This time was different though, it had lasted longer than normal, and I wanted to keep on working on it so it would finally work, I knew we were very close.

“The next day after an all nighter in the lab, and an entire pot of coffee, I was ready to test them again. It still failed, but held off the radiation for even longer, I knew we were so close. I made a tweak, and set the machine to shoot again, but something horrible had happened. Somehow the glass cracked, and the gun was about to go off, meaning everyone in the lab, a co-worker, Betty, and I, were about to get a dose of high radiation, from which we would certainly die.

“Once the gun was started, it was a long process to get it to shut down, it was time we didn’t have to do by computer, someone would have to do it manually. The other guy with us, I strangely can’t remember his name for the life of me, volunteered, and went inside. It got even worse, the time limit had decreased dramatically for some reason. I went in to help, alarms were blaring making us panic, which made the situation even worse. For some reason that I can’t understand, at the last second I jumped in front of the beam, taking the full force of the radiation so that the others would live. The last thing I remember before falling was someone screaming.”

I took another deep breath and let it out slowly, by the rate I was going, I was going to turn into the Hulk before I even got halfway through my story. “Any questions?” Silence was heard. I looked around, and everyone was staring at me expectantly, they wanted me to continue. ”Okay, then. Well, the next thing I know, I’m waking up in the base’s care unit. Everyone was astonished, that amount of radiation full force with nothing to hinder it should have killed me on its own, but combined with me interacting with the nanomeds, I should have exploded like all of our test subjects. I wish it had. 

“Instead, it activated the recessive genes within me, bringing them out at last, it was basically the birth of the Other Guy. Before this, the Other Guy was already there, I heard his voice in my head, me being exposed just gave him more power, gave me the ability to transform into the Hulk. During the night, I was visited by my father, he told me that my name was not Krenzler, but Banner. After he left, I rushed to the nurses station but she hadn’t seen him, and I dismissed it as a dream, I shouldn’t have. In the morning, I had to have blood taken out to run tests. I was now the key to our research. 

“I tested my own blood, because if anyone was finding out secrets to my DNA, it was me. ‘Unknown’ and ‘Insufficient Data’ was what I got. Then everything came rushing at me for some reason, images that didn’t happen flashed before me, and memories appeared. And I lost control, I had changed for the first time. Betty found me in my home, and my mind was frustratingly blank. I couldn’t remember anything, not one thing. It’s better now, I can gain control, and remember what happened, but it was a long process getting there.” I breathed in and out while images from that time flashed in my mind. I could remember some of the things I had been thinking at that time, it terrified me, and I noticed my skin was taking on a greenish tinge. I closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe slower. When I finally deemed that I was calm enough, I opened up my eyes, my skin was back to normal and everyone was staring at me. “Any questions?” 

All was silent and they shook their heads, staring at me intently. “Well, I didn’t realize my story was so gripping.” I said, smirking.

Tony rolled his eyes, “Just continue Big Green.”

“Very well, when she found me I told her that my name wasn’t Krenzler, that I thought it was Banner. In the time I had taken to get dressed and take a shower, flashes of what happened had come back to me. We sat at my dining room table, and I attempted to explain it to her. It was so confusing, I asked her to what was happening to me. All of a sudden there is someone banging on the door, and it’s Betty’s father along with several military police. She is escorted out and I was questioned, but I remained silent and poker-faced. Eventually, he left, frustrated, and I was left under the watchful eyes of the military police. Apparently, my father had contacted Betty, but I wasn’t aware of that until much later. I was interrogated again, but this time it was much more cliched. They even had a lamp they were shining in my face, it was then I learned that I should know something, something from when I was four years old, something about my parents. That uncovered a door, a door that would lead to the answer for that, if only I were to open it. I couldn’t cross that threshold, because I knew there would be no going back after I knew what he meant, and I couldn’t do that. He left again, this time leaving me alone, but watched. They had cut off all contact, forcing me to stay home, they even cut the wire to my home phone.

“Then a phone was ringing, it was my father. I learned so many things in that phone call. Found out that he experimented on himself because the higher ups wouldn’t let him have human test subjects for his research, that he wanted to harness the power that I had unlocked. I told him that I would isolate myself, treat it, remove it, kill it, before anyone got hurt. He didn’t think I could, even if it meant killing myself, I wouldn’t destroy it. I was also told that Betty would be attacked soon, and that he already had my DNA, and used it.” I breathed deeply again. The panic at hearing that information assaulted me again, and I had to push back the Other Guy as hard as I could as I tried desperately to calm down. I stood up. “I think I need to go calm down in a safe environment.” With that, I turned and basically sprinted to the nearest containment room.

When I got there, I barely had time to close and lock the door before I lost control. I fell to the ground as the pain from transforming overtook me. I felt the disconcerting feeling of my bones elongating, my body growing bigger and stronger as the anger took hold. SMASH he screamed, and off we went.

After basically demolishing the contents of the room, the anger started to ebb away, and I fell to the floor as the strength left me and laid there as my bones and body shrunk back to what they were before the anger took over. I took in a deep breath, then let it out, and stood up. I went to the clothes station that was always in the small room outside, and got into sweatpants this time with a loose shirt, these hopefully wouldn’t rip so next time I wouldn’t have to change. I headed back to the conference room and sat back down. I took another deep breath. “So,” I enquired. “Questions?”

“So, you’re basically a green giant when you transform?” Percy asked.

“I guess you could say that.” I answered.

Percy nodded, “That is a power that can help and hinder.” He commented.

I smiled, for him to react that way, it was the last thing I expected. To say that the power was good in ways, but it was also bad. It was surprisingly honest and wise. “After the call, Talbot showed up. He had made an appearance earlier than that. Before I was shot with gamma radiation, he put forth a deal between our science department and Atheon. Atheon was a research industry that would put money towards any idea that was worth their while. They had extremely close ties with the military, and because of which, I said no to the offer. I was not a going to let my discoveries be used in harming innocent people. He had been pulling strings behind the whole thing. From letting my father out, to making Talbot aware of my ancestry and connection with his daughter. He was one sly man. He pretty much tried beating me up, and because of this I changed for the second time. With the thought of Betty being hurt flashing through my mind, it was the only thing that cut through, the only thing that allowed me direction in that time.

“She was at the cabin. It took me, as the Hulk, a while to recognize her. She was scared, of course, and while trying to run away, she almost fell. I caught her, then lifted her onto the roof of her car, so she would be safe. Then the dogs came, genetically mutated Hulk-dogs, made by my father to kill Betty and to weaken me. By this point Betty had gotten into her car. I killed the first one by jumping up and landing on it’s back, reducing it to a corpse that began to melt away almost immediately. I tried to jump on another one, but they anticipated my move, and got out of the way in time. When I landed one bit into my ankle, the other, my neck. I got them off,l and while they tried to get into Betty’s car, I uprooted a tree, and crushed one against the roof of the car, the other got away and we wrestled. I finally got hold of the beast, and choked it to death. Afterwards, I was so tired from fighting the Hulk-dogs, I stumbled to the river and started to change back. After I changed, I staggered up and towards Betty’s car, and pried her door open. We went into the cabin, and I promptly passed out. When I woke up we tried to come up with how to explain it. The farthest we got was that my anger triggers a signal that breaks my DNA, and when it breaks it releases energy, tremendous amounts of energy. A noise from outside caused me to lean out the window, and then I got shot with a tranquilizer dart. And as Betty helped me to the ground, she said that she didn’t know what else to do. And in that horrifying moment, I realized that she had betrayed me. Sold me out to her father so that they could run tests on me and probably weaponize it.

“As military police were sent out to capture my father, he was in the Berkeley labs, and went through the same process. Exposing himself to the nanomeds and then he allowed himself to get shot with the gamma radiation. When I woke up at the Desert Base that was rebuilt, I was given a tour in hopes that I would remember my past. The earliest memory I had was when I was nine, for God’s sake. I was very bitter about it, she said she was sorry, but I told that she wasn’t, that she knew exactly what she was doing when she called her father. I told her that it was the fact that I had been repressing my emotions for so long was the only thing keeping me from giving into the anger, betrayal, and hurt. But what purpose would that serve, really? I told her I felt It watching me and hating me, because It knew we were going to destroy it. She said that they were going to understand it, but I told her that that was the same exact thing. 

“At one point I walked into my old house, and got angry about what was expected of me. That what, I was supposed to have some sort of emotional breakthrough, reconcile with my inner child, exorcise my inner demons, find my true self, and then believe that everything would be fine and dandy afterwards? I told her that remembering might kill me, she thought that it would save me. I asked her what would happen if I didn’t want to be saved. She told me that I could choose, but she didn’t have a choice. When I asked why, she told me she loved me. I was surprised, oh lord I was surprised. I wondered how much of that was real and how much of it was wishful thinking on her part to try and get me back to normal. I asked her how it was possible, how was that possible when we didn’t even know who I was? We went back to the base, and I was put back in my holding cell.

“I was beginning to remember. Pretty soon the doors are opening up, and there’s Talbot, and hundred other men with guns pointed at me. He was very blunt about what he wanted. He wanted me to transform so he could get a part of my Hulk flesh and make a fortune off of it. So in order to get through it without letting him get what he wanted, I decided to bottle it up. Bottle it up as hard as I could and bury it deep so that I could let it fly out and transform instantly. It was much harder than I thought, because Talbot was shocking me in order to get me to transform. It was kind of ironic really, the stress was meant to increase my heartrate and make me change, but if he shocked me too much, it would cause my heart to stop. Then he decided to beat me until I was unleashed. It didn’t really work, and I passed out.” I gave another deep breath, as the pain from that day assaulted me yet again. I took several more deep breaths until my heart rate slowed down again, and the anger weakened from a full on migraine to a dull throb. I opened my eyes and look at them expectantly, but they simply waved me on.

“While unconscious, they stimulated the nerve endings in my brain to cause activity. This made me remember the day the Desert Base exploded. It was also the day my father tried to kill me, and while trying to do so, he killed my mother. This memory caused me to transform. They tried to knock me out with gas, but I broke through the wall. Then they tried to contain me using a foam that was supposed to immobilize me, but I could still move somewhat. It began to harden, making it harder to move, and it covered almost all of me. Then Talbot slams something into my neck, this makes me so angry, I am able to break free of the foam. Talbot and the guards he sent retreated, but Talbot took a gun from one of the guards, and turned to face me. At this point, I recognized him, and grew so angry, I actually grew in size. Talbot fired at me, and since I was bulletproof, and taking up the whole hallway, there was nowhere else for the bullets to ricochet except back at him. 

“So Talbot was killed, not by my hand, but his own. The others retreated back farther, closing a panel behind them. But the Hulk wouldn’t let it go, wouldn’t let go how much pain and hurt was caused to us, and went after them, smashing down the door. Due to the extreme light that was used to hinder me, I smashed the ceiling in order to escape, and kept heading upwards until I reached the surface.

“When I change I have no power against the mind of the Hulk, here reason was squashed, I have almost no say in our actions, for most of the time I can only watch. On the surface, we were drawn to my house, the house where I had lived my early years, the house that could unlock so many things. Then the military came, as I had known they would, and blasted us with tanks. They tried to restrain me with chains, but I used them to destroy the tanks. I also used brute force to destroy them. When they saw how strong I was, throwing around a tank like it was a shoe box, they fell back.

“As I was tearing through the desert, they sent a Black Hawk helicopter after me, but it was no match for my speed, and quickly fell behind. They then sent in Comanches as back up, and tracked me. At this point, I had reached rock formations, and, had I been left alone, probably would have transformed back. Unfortunately the helicopters arrived, and sensing they were a threat, attacked them. I downed one, then scrambled up the cliff side as the fired after me. At the top, they fired a missile at me and I fell all the way to the bottom, and angrily made my way back up again. After that I headed west, toward San Francisco.” I took in another deep breath, it wasn’t as hard as the last few times to push back the anger so that was a good sign, I guess. I looked at them, wondering if I had made any sense. I realized now that I had spoken in third person, as if I were observing, spoken in first person, as if I were the person in charge doing all of these actions, and I had spoken as if there were two people involved in this. It might be confusing to them, but to me, it made perfect sense. I was the Hulk, and the Hulk was me, but at the same time I wasn’t the Hulk, I was just me, and the Hulk was just him. The others just waved me on, they didn’t want to interrupt ‘story time’ as Percy put it. So I obliged.

“Meanwhile, my father had guilt tripped Betty into seeing whether she could let him see me. So he was also in San Francisco, in a jail where he could easily break out. And on top of that, he got something different when he mutated himself, he could touch an object, and that part of his body would retain what the object was made of, and basically turn into that object.

“As I arrived in San Francisco on top of the Golden Gate bridge, four airplanes and a helicopter pursued me. When one got too close I jumped on top of it, the plane then flew into the sky. Frost began to form, and I lost consciousness, and fell into the bay half-conscious. Then I gained conscious and headed up to the surface, there I took a breath of air, and headed back under the water. I then headed into the city by using the underwater drains that emptied into the bay.

“At one point, I climbed through a manhole, and arrived on the street, Immediately people freaked, police were called in to get citizens to safety, and SWAT teams sent in, and a fleet of helicopters came roaring in as well. All this and they sent in one person, Betty. I don’t know how it happened, but she got me to change back. I was then immediately put into a containment which was surrounded by lasers that could incinerate me within seconds if I showed any sign of transforming.

“My father was then brought in to see me, horrible decision really. Betty should have made sure he was a thousand miles away from me after what happened with the Hulk-hounds, but he was a good actor, I guess, because he was able to see me. He put himself right next to the lasers, so that if I were to transform he would be incinerated too. I told him I should have killed him, he said he should have killed me. My response was that I wish he had. He then told me he had come for his son, when I was confused he went further, he came for his real son, the one inside me. He said that I was merely a shell, a husk to be torn off at a moment's notice. 

“Then he leaned in and told me that he had a cure, for him. That his cells could also transform, absorb energy, but they were unstable. He told me that he needed my strength, that he had given me life, so now I must give it back. He talked of destroying world order, of me being in him. I told him I’d rather die. He told me that I would, and then I would be reborn the sort of hero that was on the earth before civilization infected humanity. He was udderly crazy and power hungry and demented, that man. As my mother used to say, he was crazy as a soup sandwich, but he was brilliant I’ll give him that. 

“So when I jumped up, hoping to be incinerated rather than pulled into whatever plans he had for me, the soldiers at the control panel were, understandably, jumpy and they immediately started up the machine. When my father saw heard the machine come on, he tore open a wire, and put the ends in his mouth. He became charged with electrical energy, and used its power, which he had absorbed, to create an electromagnetic wave that knocked out all of the power in the hangar. 

“Due to this, I transformed and punched him out of the hangar. We battled, but everytime I hit him, my energy and power was transferred to him, making him stronger. At one point I threw a rock at him, and due to him transforming into any material that he touched he turned into rock as well. Since I could pretty much desolate rock, I was able to turn him into dust quickly. When I was finished, particles of him had landed on me, I brushed them off, and they regained power, transforming into a version of the Hulk. We wrestled on, and then I remembered something, something that was the key to defeating him, I would forgive him, and give him my energy willingly.”

“No way! Bruce, it must have worked, but it generally sounds like a stupid idea.” Tony burst out.

“Not really,” Percy said thoughtfully. “By sending almost all of the Hulk’s energy into his dad, who already had enough energy to look like the Hulk, that much would have overloaded his system. It would open him up to absorb energy from anywhere else, like water or earth, and eventually it would be too much energy, and he’d explode. It’s either that or once he depleted the energies around him, he would start to absorb the next closest energy, himself. Also, if Bruce had died in the process, then he eliminated the two Hulks from the world, doing what he said earlier, killing it before it hurt anyone. By this point I’m assuming that you’ve learned how to take control better, and you don’t cause too much harm unless necessary, considering the military isn’t gunning after you.”

Everyone stared, I was shocked myself, but I smiled at him and said, “You are right Percy, and that was very well put, it was exactly what I had in mind at the time. Of course, the Hulk didn’t really know my plans, but the memory had thrown him off, he wasn’t sure what he was angry at anymore. So when my father took our hand and held it to his stomach, he couldn’t fight him off. My father absorbed the energy, and as he did so, I melted. Eventually the energy was too much, and it went of control. He was still taking on energy, it wasn’t stopping. It started bringing in more energy, and they collided, the moonlight, the air, the wind, until there was nothing else to absorb, and his body searching for more energy seeked out the closest thing, himself. As he stumbled to a hilltop nearby, a thermonuclear missile was fired at him, and he exploded, it was too much energy to hold. That explosion still haunts me, it was so humongous, it engulfed the sky.

“Somehow, I survived, and I woke up on the opposite shore of the lake. I immediately got out of the country, required a fake ID, and moved around a lot after that. I went to gurus, and other teachers to learn how to control my anger and heart rate. I wore a heart rate monitor, and tested myself, seeing how high my heart rate could go before I inevitably transformed. I worked odd jobs, and at one point became a worker with red cross for many years. At one point soldiers came and tried to confiscate the medicine that these people desperately needed. The were about to shoot a child, so I transformed, it was a bad decision really. Gave people fear that I was still alive. I moved once again, changed identities for what seemed like the thousandth time, and became a town doctor. That’s where Shield found me, they sent in Natasha who had paid one of the girls whose father I treated to bring me to my house, as I generally made house calls. There, I was brought to the helicarrier, which was Shield headquarters. And that’s it, I could go into what happened after that, but that pertains to the Battle of New York.” I looked around the table and opened my mouth, and got interrupted.

“Yes, Big Green, we know, question time. I got nothing, how about you guys?” Tony asked. 

Shoulders were shrugged all around, as Fury watched with an emotionless stare. “So, Clint, looks like you’re up.”

“God, I regret volunteering for second so much right now,” Clint grumbled. And like me, he took a deep breath, then began.


	14. Chapter 14

*Thalia Grace*

As I headed through the woods looking for Grover, I went over the two strange things that had happened since the end of the war.

~~~~Flashback~~~~

After the third anniversary of the war, we were having a ritual of silence before the meals to honor our friends, when Grover burst in. He was panting, out of breath, not wearing pants or shoes, and his hat was hanging haphazardly onto one of his horns. His eyes were wide, and he was visibly trembling. He was frantically scanning the crowd, then he spotted me. He immediately rushed over, then dragged me out of there.

“Grover, let go of me! What’s going on?” I asked, while struggling to get out of the death grip he had and my arm. He squeezed tighter, and I winced.

“Sorry,” he said glancing at me, his grip loosened a bit. “I’ll explain when we get somewhere more private. I’m pretty sure you’re the only one who won’t think that I’m crazy.”

I raised an eyebrow, but stop struggling, and let him lead me to wherever he wanted to go. That place turned out to be Zeus’s Fist. When Grover finally let go of me, I turned to him, rubbing my arm where he had ahold of me and raised an eyebrow. “Now, care to explain why you dragged me away from lunch to talk at Zeus's Fist, and why you looked half out of your mind when you arrived?”

Grover gulped, “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, I may just be going crazy, and with all that’s happened, I wouldn’t be surprised.” He said, chuckling darkly.

“Grover, just tell me what’s going on.” I said softly, he wasn’t the only one who was concerned with his sanity. Me, I sometimes thought I heard Annabeth’s voice behind me, and I’d turn around fully expecting her to be there. Then when no one would be there except a surprised camper, her death would hit me once again like a blow from a giant, knocking the air right out of me. Sometimes, I’d be walking through the city, and a dark haired man will just be turning away from me, and I swear to the Gods, his eyes are sea green and there was that familiar smirk upon his face. Then I’d catch up to him, tap him on the shoulder fully expecting it to be Percy, then he’d turn around, and it’d be some mortal. I would then numbly say sorry as his death hit me in the gut and twisted there sickeningly, it was like I was being stabbed and the sword was being twisted as it cut through me.

He shifted uneasily, “Remember when I told you it felt like the empathy link was still there?”

“Yeah, what about it?” I asked, of course I remembered that day. it wasn’t even two days after the war when Grover ran up to me, and shocked the daylights out of me. It was then that he said that he still felt the empathy link he had made with Percy, that it was still humming, and occasionally he could get flashes of sadness and guilt from it, but nothing more. He said it was like it had weakened, or more like he was being blocked. I immediately dismissed it, told him he was just imagining things, then, before I walked off, I yelled at him, “He’s dead! Just like Annabeth, just like Nico and Hazel and Frank and Leo and Piper and Jason! Don’t you dare talk to me about something like this again, don’t you dare give me a glimmer of hope only to let it be squashed by reality!” With that I had stalked off, tears glimmering in my eyes as the pain of them being gone washed over me once again, like an old, torturous wound that would never heal. Afterwards, I regretted exploding on him I was just angry and sad for what the Fates had done. The next day, I found him and apologised profusely.

“I felt something this morning.” He said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I felt pain, despair, guilt, and fear. But it was more than just emotions, I felt him Thalia, I felt his presence for not even a second, but it was there. It was horrible Thalia, I felt whatever pain he was in at the moment and it… it was bad, really bad.” He said his eyes flashing with sadness.

I stared at him, wide eyed and shocked, if I didn’t believe him when he tried three years ago, I halfway did now. His eyes, they told me that he wasn’t lying, not a bit. “What do mean by bad?”

“I don’t know myself, all I know is that he’s experienced years of pain and hurt since the end of the war, and he’s so guilty and wants to die to be with them. Thalia, whatever has happened, it changed him, and I don’t think it’s necessarily good.” He replied, frowning, concern tracing his features.

“If he’s alive, then why hasn’t he contacted us, why don’t the Gods feel any of this?” I asked, confused. If Grover could sense that he was still alive, couldn’t the Gods?

“I think that Poseidon can sense it when Percy uses his powers, that’s whenever I can sense him the strongest, I can always sense his concentration on water. I think Poseidon thinks it’s just his imagination, grief causing him to imagine that he still senses Percy out there, alive and well. I honestly don’t know why he’s not contacting us. Maybe he feels too guilty about their deaths to come back to the place that will remind him of them the most, maybe he feels we’ll be angry at him from being away for this long.” 

“Well of course we’d be mad Grover, it’s been three years, and whatever excuse he should have, it better be a good one. But we wouldn’t be mad for very long, me? I’d probably punch him, then hug him, then scold him for being away for so long and making everyone think he was dead, then I would probably hug and punch him again.” I said seriously.

Grover laughed, “I’d probably just tackle him while hugging him.”

“So… I'm pretty sure everyone else will think we’re crazy.”

“Most likely,” Grover replied, shrugging.

“How can we prove this? Have you ever sensed his location?” I asked.

“I haven’t ever sensed his exact location, but I know that he’s in New York. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to prove that he’s alive unless he chooses to reveal that himself.”

I thought about it, “Maybe...maybe he’s not alive.” Grover started to protest. “Hear me out okay? Maybe your empathy link wasn’t severed when he died and you are connected to his spirit, is that possible?” I asked.

Grover blinked, and thought about it, “I don’t think so, but if I’m connected to his spirit, why is he in so much pain?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” I said, then I stalked off, that started my monthly interrogation I have with Hades, where he frustratingly told me that he didn’t know, couldn’t sense him anywhere, and that he hasn’t sensed him since he hurled Zeus’s lightning Bolt into the ground beneath him. 

***End Flashback***

Those two things, Grover thinking the empathy link was still there, and bringing it up to me those two times, began the suspicion, and this, this only cemented it, this third thing that made the suspicion real. When I finally made it to the clearing for the Elder satyrs. The meeting had apparently just ended, since some of the satyrs were leaving, Grover was talking to a younger satyr, and I waited impatiently for them to finish.

When he was done talking, Grover saw me and his eyes brightened a bit, “Hey Thalia, what do you need?”

“Can we talk?”

“Of course.”

“Privately?”

Grover’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded in agreement, “Lead the way.”

I nodded, then walked quickly to Zeus’s Fist, I could feel Grover’s suspicion increasing behind me as we neared the rock. Once we reached there, I turned to face him, “Someone sweared on the River Styx using Percy’s name, Poseidon came to Camp and threatened the campers against doing it again, he looked horrible, the three years Percy’s been gone has not been good to him.”

Grover’s eyes widened in shock, “What? When did this happen?”

“Someone sweared on the River Styx using Percy’s name today sometime during our ceremony.” I told him.

“But… you can’t swear on the River Styx using someone else’s name, it’s never been done before.”

“Right, that’s why I want to go see Nico, Hades still won’t give me answers, and Nico realized his powers around Percy, so he would be the first person that he would sense, maybe he could sense where he is now. That was probably the problem with Hades,” I mused, “He didn’t know what Percy’s life-force felt like. Anyway, I need you to take me to the the opening to the Underworld that required music, you do still have your reed pipes, right?”

Grover looked half dazed, “Yeah, sure I do, I mean I need to grab them from the Big House but-”

“Perfect, I’ll meet you by the Big House after I grab some of my supplies, I should be there around five, see you there, okay?”

“Okay,” Grover replied still trying to catch up.” I rushed off to get my supplies, but as I reached the woods, I heard Grover yell after me. “Wait, does that mean you believe me about Percy?” I didn’t answer him, I wasn’t sure if I believed Grover just yet, wasn’t sure I could until I saw the Seaweed Brain in front of me alive for myself.

When I reached the Artemis cabin, I grabbed my bow and filled it to the brim with arrows. I grabbed the bracelet that was my shield, Aegis, and headed out to meet Grover at the Big House.


End file.
